OPP.CO

The Optimal Solution | Save Money, Save Time

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Inspiration

Being students, we are constantly bombarded with the burdens of life. Balancing work, school, and relationships can be overwhelming and one thing we don't all have easy access to is an abundance of time and money. Thus OPP.CO came to life, the ultimate student hack portal that allows them to save time and money.

What it does

The program allows for the user to input the number of grocery items they might require, the shopping destination, and the mode of transportation necessary to reach there. The program will take into account external factors of cost, such as price of groceries and transportation, and time in order to calculate the total opportunity cost of accessing the chosen store. This will be useful when students need to weigh their options and look at the opportunity costs of shopping, whether they would be willing to spend more time to save more money or vice versa.

How we built it

During the design phase, we outlined the variables necessary in creating the code. We would need to incorporate the cost of groceries (same brand, similar composition) for all the store included in the calculation, cost of transportation based on which store was being accessed, and the time taken to reach there. By doing so, we were able to identify the need for nested choices and input statements which would give the user more of a leeway to choose between numerous available alternatives and opportunities. In order to calculate the total opportunity costs, we did preliminary research to factor in the variables to mimic real-life scenarios more accurately. By incorporating all the aforementioned features, we concluded that the most effective way to optimize the best solution would be for the user to input the preferences voluntarily and in return, receive an updated statement which outline the total cost and time they will be using or taking.

Challenges we ran into

Some of the challenges raised were during the computing process. We wanted to account for all and any irregular entries made by a user and thus, did case testing. During the case testing phase, we realized that some inputs required had to be in a specific string or integer form, if the user did not input the exact same format as the required input, there would be an error raised. To deal with this, we incorporated exception handling which would raise a print statement to continuously urge the user to try again with different values until they input the correct format, all under a while loop.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

So happy to have created a functional and simple program that is user friendly given time constraints and limited coding experience. Proud to have create a program that has purpose, is able to helps students like ourselves, and create opportunities for community engagement. Awesome to have worked together with a friend, we were able to build off of each others strengths to create you see today

What we learned

While there are other applications such as Flipp that give you the best deals at grocery stores, there is currently not an application that takes into account the cost of grocery items, cost of transportation while also considering the amount of time dedicated to the commute to the store. As beginners programmers we were also able to expand on our coding skills to create this program which was awesome! Coding isn’t as daunting as we thought it was as long as we were going slow and steady and used the help of great mentors

What's next for OPP.CO

Our long term goal is to create a fully functional and versatile mobile application as well as a website that allows users to easily access the platform. By upgrading the program by integrating APIs and making it more efficient, the potential for this program to grow is great. Furthermore, there are great opportunities to engage with the community and key stakeholders such as grocery stores, services like Uber, and more to make students and other users to become more aware of the amount of time and money they’re spending to make smarter financial decisions.

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Updates

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Code used in the creation:

*************NOTE**************

For cost:

#given that an average car can contain 45-65 litres, we estimated an average of 55 litres fuel efficiency per car.
#choosing the Esso gas station as our target fuel provider, we calculated cost based on their current gas prices of $1.09/litre.
#in order to receive the final cost, we assumed that per every 1 km driven, 0.5 litres of fuel was consumed.

Fortinos - prices of one unit of the following groceries:

milkF = 4.59 eggsF = 5.19 breadF = 2.49 coffeeF = 7.29 yoghurtF = 2.49

Food Basics - prices of one unit of the following groceries:

milkFB = 4.39 eggsFB = 4.67 breadFB = 2.47 coffeeFB = 6.79 yoghurtFB = 2.77

Walmart - prices of one unit of the following groceries:

milkW = 4.47 eggsW = 3.18 breadW = 2.97 coffeeW = 4.97 yoghurtW = 2.67

while(True): #Number of units bought: try: NumMilk = abs(int(input("How many bags of milk will you buy? "))) NumEggs = abs(int(input("How many cartons of eggs will you buy? "))) NumBread = abs(int(input("How many loaves of bread will you buy? "))) NumCoffee = abs(int(input("How many containers of coffee will you buy? "))) NumYoghurt = abs(int(input("How many containers of yoghurt will you buy? ")))

    #Store Chooser - user gets to input which store is chosen:
    store = str(input("Which store will you choose? Fortinos, Food Basics or Walmart? "))

    if store == "Fortinos":

        #Mode of Transport Chooser - user gets to input which transport method is chosen:
        mode = str(input("Which method of transportation do you prefer? Car, Bus or Uber? "))

        try:
            if mode == "Car":
                cost = 0.9
                time = 3
            elif mode == "Bus":
                cost = 3.25
                time = 15
            elif mode == "Uber":
                cost = 11
                time = 4
                break
        except (ValueError, NameError) as error:
            print("Check your values and try again!")
        price = ((NumMilk*milkF)+(NumEggs*eggsF)+(NumBread*breadF)+(NumCoffee*coffeeF)+(NumYoghurt*yoghurtF))*1.13 #tax included

    elif store == "Food Basics":

        #Mode of Transport Chooser - user gets to input which transport method is chosen:
        mode = str(input("Which method of transportation do you prefer? Car, Bus or Uber? "))

        try:
            if mode == "Car":
                cost = 1.14
                time = 4
            elif mode == "Bus":
                cost = 3.25
                time = 22
            elif mode == "Uber":
                cost = 12
                time = 6
                break
        except (ValueError, NameError) as error:
            print("Check your values and try again!")
        price = ((NumMilk*milkFB)+(NumEggs*eggsFB)+(NumBread*breadFB)+(NumCoffee*coffeeFB)+(NumYoghurt*yoghurtFB))*1.13

    elif store == "Walmart":

        #Mode of Transport Chooser - user gets to input which transport method is chosen:
        mode = str(input("Which method of transportation do you prefer? Car, Bus or Uber? "))

        try:
            if mode == "Car":
                cost = 4.62
                time = 13
            elif mode == "Bus":
                cost = 3.25
                time = 37
            elif mode == "Uber":
                cost = 20
                time = 14
                break
        except (ValueError, NameError) as error:
            print("Check your values and try again!")

        price = ((NumMilk*milkW)+(NumEggs*eggsW)+(NumBread*breadW)+(NumCoffee*coffeeW)+(NumYoghurt*yoghurtW))*1.13

    #Opportunity Cost:
    OppCost = round((price+cost),2)

    print("This will cost you $", OppCost,"and it will take", time, "mins.")
    break
except (ValueError, NameError) as error:
    print("Check your values and try again!")

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