## Inspiration

Our first idea when brainstorming was to create a mall navigation app that allows users to find a specific item rather than going store to store, then decided maybe a city-wide grocery optimization app would be a better idea. However, there are already a lot of grocery apps out there and people are most likely to search for the best high-ticket items possible rather than save a few bucks on groceries.

## What it does

QuickQuery asks the user for their shopping preferences and creates a weighted scoring matrix based on the survey results (price, proximity, and reviews). When the user enters keywords, a database is searched for the similar items and ranks them based on the scoring matrix results.

## How we built it

Creation of a cloud based cockroachDB server which simulates store merchandise data, and through a front-end application based on node.js allows users to search for items they'd like to purchase. Through the location(), availability() and price() functions our server searches for the closest and most affordable items being looked for and displays this to our users. Thus users are able to more efficiently shop for items that they would want to use.

## Challenges we ran into

* React was a language that none of us had experience with. In addition, visual studio was refusing to run JavaScript files for Annika, despite troubleshooting attempts.
* Cockroach database is more suited for communication between nodes, mongoDB would have been a much more successful choice so it was overall difficult to get up and running.
-Our team had little combined experience in the languages necessary to fully bring everything together.

## Accomplishments that we're proud of

* A functioning figma presentation showcasing the potential of the project
* Successful use of the cockroach database
* Attendance of most workshops and making the most out of deltahacks

## What we learned

* Annika learned how to use figma to create a prototype presentation and learned about the connection between HTML and JavaScript when building a simple website. Although using Reach was not successful, HTML worked just fine and she successfully completed several demo websites with the new language.
* Effective brainstorming using figma and taking input from mentors about the importance of target audiences
* Ali used cockroachDB for the first time

## What's next for QuickQuery

* Adding a front-end, user-friendly website to connect with the work completed on the back end.
* Ability to search for a list of items rather than just one, allowing the user to know which store offers the most of the items.
* A longer user survey that adds consideration for health concerns and desired performance specs
## Inspiration

Inspired by our own struggles, as college students, to:

1. Find nearby grocery stores and
2. Find transportation to the already sparse grocery stores,

we created car•e to connect altruistic college kids, with cars (or other forms of transportation) and a love for browsing grocery store aisles, with peers (without modes of transportation) looking to grab a few items from the grocery store.

Food insecurity is a huge issue for college campuses. It was estimated that over 10% of Americans were food insecure in 2020, but the number shot up to over 23% of college students. Food insecurity has a strong correlation with the outcomes of student education– not only are students less likely to academically excel, but they are also less likely to obtain a bachelor's degree.

Our team wanted to address the sustainability track and the Otsuka Valuenex challenge because we identified a gap in organizations that address the lack of food access for college students. Being unable to easily access a grocery store would be inconvenient at best, but more than likely perpetuates health issues, economic inequity, and transportation barriers.

## What it does

Our project is a space for college students, with the means to take quick trips to the grocery store, to volunteer a bit of their time to help out some of their peers. The “shoppers,” or students with access, input their grocery list and planned time and location of the trip. Then, “hoppers,” or college students who would like to hop onto a grocery trip would input their grocery list, and our matching algorithm sorts through the posted shopping trips.

## How we built it

We implemented our idea with low-fidelity prototypes, working from diagrams on a whiteboard, to illustrating user flow and design on Figma, and then building the product itself on SwiftUI, XCode, and Firebase. When producing the similarity-matching results between shoppers and hoppers, we looked into Python, Flask, and Chroma, exploring various methodologies to achieve a good user experience while maximizing efficiency with available shoppers.

## Challenges we ran into

Through this process, organizing the user flow and fleshing out logistical details proved to be a challenge. Our idea also required familiarization with new technology and errors, including Firebase, unknown XCode problems, and Chroma. When faced with these struggles, we dynamically built off each others’ ideas and explored various methodologies and approaches to our proposed solution; every idea and its implementation was a discussion. We drew from our personal experiences to create something that would benefit those around us, and we truly came together to address an issue that we all feel passionately about.

## Accomplishments that we're proud of

1. Ideating process
2. Perseverance
3. Ability to build off of ideas
4. Team bonding
5. Exploration
6. Addressing issues we experience
7. Transforming personal experiences into solutions

## What we learned

This experience taught us that there are infinite solutions to a single problem. Thus when evaluating the most optimal solution, it’s important to evaluate on a comprehensive criteria, focusing on efficiency, impact, usability, and implementation. While this process may be time-consuming, it is necessary to keep the user in mind to ensure that the product and its features truly fulfill an unmet user need.

## What's next for car·e

1. Building out future features (e.g. messaging capability)
2. Building a stronger community aspect through features in our app: more bonding and friendships
3. Business model
4. Incentives to get ppl started on the app
## Inspiration

With billions of tons of food waste occurring in Canada every year. We knew that there needs to exist a cost-effective way to reduce food waste that can empower restaurant owners to make more eco-conscious decisions while also incentivizing consumers to choose more environmentally-friendly food options.

## What it does

Re-fresh is a two-pronged system that allows users to search for food from restaurants that would otherwise go to waste at a lower price than normal. On the restaurant side, we provide a platform to track and analyze inventory in a way that allows restaurants to better manage their requisitions for produce so that they do not generate any extra waste and they can ensure profits are not being thrown away.

## How we built it

For the backend portion of the app, we utilized cockroachDB in python and javascript as well as React Native for the user mobile app and the enterprise web application. To ensure maximum protection of our user data, we used SHA256 encryption to encrypt sensitive user information such as usernames and password.

## Challenges we ran into

Due to the lack of adequate documentation as well as a plethora of integration issues with react.js and node, cockroachDB was a difficult framework to work with. Other issues we ran into were some problems on the frontend with utilizing chart.js for displaying graphical representations of enterprise data.

## Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud of the end design of our mobile app and web application. Our team are not native web developers so it was a unique experience stepping out of our comfort zone and getting to try new frameworks and overall we are happy with what we learned as well as how we were able to utilize our brand understanding of programming principles to create this project.

## What we learned

We learned more about web development than what we knew before. We also learned that despite the design-oriented nature of frontend development there are many technical hurdles to go through when creating a full stack application and that there is a wide array of different frameworks and APIs that are useful in developing web applications.

## What's next for Re-Fresh

The next step for Re-Fresh is restructuring the backend architecture to allow ease of scalability for future development as well as hopefully being able to publish it and attract a customer-base.