HokiePlate

Fuel your goals, one plate at a time.

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Inspiration

Our main goal was to create an accessible and user-friendly app for VT students, particularly those with fitness and weight loss goals, freshman and transfer students new to campus, and students with dietary restrictions. We wanted to democratize nutrition access and support student wellness by making healthy eating achievable for all students regardless of their background or experience with campus dining. 

What it does

HokiePlate is a personalized nutritionist and food tracker app designed specifically for college students' campus dining experience. The app creates customized meal plans based on real-time menus from nearby dining halls, integrating with VT's dining infrastructure to provide intelligent food recommendations. Students can input their calorie goals and dietary restrictions, and our AI-powered chatbot "PlatePal" instantly generates meal suggestions. The app features quick-prompt functionality for students in a rush, real-time dining hall status showing hours and walking distances, comprehensive food tracking across all campus dining options, and integrated campus mapping for seamless navigation to dining locations.

How we built it

We utilized JavaScript and Visual Studio Code for the user interface, with HTML and CSS for frontend development. Python was used to create the web scraper that extracts VT dining hall data and nutrition information, storing it in a structured JSON database. We integrated OpenAI API with sophisticated prompt engineering techniques, including role-based prompting to establish PlatePal as a nutrition expert and few-shot learning with meal planning examples to guide response quality. Rule-based programming validates all AI-generated meal suggestions against user dietary restrictions and nutritional guidelines before presentation. The system architecture includes a Flask API server providing RESTful endpoints for frontend communication, and a daily data refresh scheduler ensuring up-to-date dining information.

Challenges we ran into

  • Integrating scraper JSON data with OpenAI API: Ensuring seamless data flow between our web scraper output and the AI system while maintaining data integrity and format consistency
  • Developing rule-based validation systems: Creating filtering logic that could effectively validate AI suggestions against dietary requirements and nutritional guidelines before presenting them to users
  • Coordinating multiple technologies: Synchronizing real-time data accuracy across Flask API, JSON database, web scraper, and frontend components while maintaining system reliability
  • Managing real-time dining hall data: Ensuring our daily data refresh scheduler maintained current information while handling potential website changes or data inconsistencies from VT dining services

Accomplishments that we're proud of

  • Working effectively as a team and leveraging each member's strengths to build a versatile, comprehensive final product
  • Successfully learning and integrating multiple new technologies within just a few days
  • Creating an app with accessibility features that serves diverse user needs
  • Integrating AI functionality with real-time campus data synchronization
  • Building a complete end-to-end solution from web scraping to user interface in a short timeframe
  • Overcoming technical challenges to create seamless data flow between multiple system components

What we learned

  • How to create a Python web scraper to parse and fetch dining hall data
  • Integrating scraper data with OpenAI API for intelligent meal recommendations
  • Designing responsive frontend interfaces from scratch using HTML and CSS
  • Creating navigation systems using Python for backend functionality
  • Collaborating effectively as a team, communicating blockers, and tackling challenges together
  • Task management and coordination across multiple technical components

What's next for HokiePlate

  • Multi-university expansion: Diversify the app to serve students across different college campuses nationwide
  • Official university partnerships: Get authorized through VT for secure student credential login and dining plan integration
  • Dining dollar management: Include balance tracking and end-of-semester donation options for unused funds
  • Advanced analytics dashboard: Provide insights into eating patterns and nutritional trends
  • Community features: Allow students to share meal recommendations and dining hall reviews
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