noms | Devpost

Inspiration

The idea for Noms was born from a desire to reduce food waste and make meal planning easier. Many of us, especially as busy college students, have faced the frustration of staring at a pantry full of ingredients but not knowing what to cook. College students often don't have the time to frequently go out and buy new groceries, so making the most of what's already in the pantry is essential. We wanted to create a solution that not only helps people make the most of what they have but also saves them money and time.

What it does

Noms is an innovative app that recognizes ingredients from a photo of your pantry or fridge and suggests recipes. It includes beautiful recipe cards with step-by-step instructions, photos, and the ability to save and share favorite recipes. Users can also manually add ingredients, load previously saved ingredients, and get recipe suggestions based on the percentage of ingredients they own.

How we built it

We built Noms using a combination of modern technologies:

Frontend: React Native with Expo for a seamless mobile experience.
Backend: Firebase for user authentication, real-time database, and storage.
API Integration: Gemini API for fetching recipe data and generating suggestions.

Our design focused on user-friendly interfaces and ensuring smooth navigation between features.

Challenges we ran into

One of the main challenges was implementing accurate ingredient recognition from photos. Integrating the Gemini API meant having to carefully craft and fine-tune our prompting to accurately identify a wide variety of ingredients. Integrating the various components (ingredient recognition, recipe suggestion, and storage) seamlessly was also a complex task.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud of successfully creating an app that simplifies meal planning and helps reduce food waste. We are also proud of connecting to the backend and having the ability to customize their profile and recipes and have it stored for later retrieval. Our image identification also improved significantly through rigorous testing and iteration. Additionally, the user-friendly design and ability to save and share recipes have received positive feedback from our testers.

What we learned

Throughout this project, we learned a lot about using the Gemini API and Firebase. We also gained deeper insights into integrating different technologies to create a cohesive user experience. The importance of user feedback in refining app features and design was another crucial lesson.

What's next for noms

Looking ahead, we plan to:

Expand the Ingredient Database: Improve the recognition model to include more ingredients.
Enhance User Features: Add more filtering options for recipes and improve the user interface (such as allergies or fitness goals).
Community Sharing: Implement a feature for users to share their recipes and experiences within the Noms community.
Nutrition Insights: Provide nutritional information for recipes to help users make healthier choices.

Noms aims to continually evolve, helping more users make the most of their ingredients and enjoy the cooking process.