Root

Inspiration

We were inspired to help the student community by combatting two big problems that we have seen. We are passionate about food waste, and the larger issues that it poses to our environment. Inspired by Olio, this project is to help stabilize food instability among the student community.

What it does

Our project links together two people who have something to offer each other, and exchange it in a safe manner. One person who is looking for food, the other with an excess amount. Users with excess food can create listings for the food they have, while users with who are in need of food can search for the item they are looking for, and receive the best possible matches from their community based off of the available listings, as well as category of food and distance.

Accomplishments we’re proud of:

• Working together as a team to develop our idea into an app and pitch presentation
• Gaining familiarity with Figma, React, and Flutter
• Successfully pivoting from a web-app to a mobile app

What we learned

• The basics of React, JavaScript, HTML, and CSS

Challenges we ran into

At first we wanted to make a web application using React as our front end and Flask as our back end. This proved to be extremely challenging because nobody in the group has ever worked with these API's before. By the time we wanted to switch to Flutter development, we paid a huge opportunity cost with our original plan.

What's next for Root

We’d like to continue to develop security for Root users. As we work towards anonymity, we’d like to put measures in place to protect both parties such as the ability to rate the food provider. This would allow food-seekers to be aware of the reputation of the donor and ensure that all food swaps maintained a certain level of quality. We’d also like to add additional filters and tags for allergens and preferences to allow for personalization.

Built With

• firebase
• flutter