Inspiration
The majority of us are living relatively healthy lives with easily accessible food, not a very limited selection, and overall, many avenues to getting what we need. But we are forgetting a very vulnerable part of our population: the elderly. They not only have to be far more careful with what they eat but also how they get their food and where that food comes from. The tools we currently provide aren’t sufficient enough to protect them, so we decided to create a food delivery app to support them.
What It Does
Designed to be efficient and convenient to use by the elderly and volunteers, this app provides a very simple yet effective approach to delivering groceries to seniors. On the delivery side, teenagers who are already accustomed to working part-time at grocery stores can help deliver groceries to seniors through this app. On the other side, all seniors have to do is provide their location and then head straight to ordering. After ordering, the order is immediately entered into the delivery requests list for volunteers to access. From there, volunteers can accept the delivery request and complete the delivery. Through this app, the delivery process is simplified and helps seniors get the food they want efficiently.
How We Built It
Through Flutter, which is an app development language by Google, we created the bulk of our work in eleven files. Some files contain hundreds of lines of code, the total being close to a thousand lines of code in the project. With a large amount of code involved as well as a lot of people, we decided to use git. Git allowed us to ensure that none of our changes clashed with each other and also that if a mistake was made, we could roll back to a previous version that worked. Finally, the back end of the database was hosted using Google Firebase. This allowed us to set up databases and Google authentications very quickly, which is how we did a lot of the server-end processing.
Challenges we ran into
We definitely encountered our fair share of challenges during the creation of Senior Shoppers. The first big problem was that none of us had a ton of experience with Flutter, which was what we chose to write the bulk of our app in. That meant that we made errors pretty frequently — both logic-based and syntax-based ones. Luckily, Git allowed us to basically have an undo button (which we used pretty frequently). Another challenge was differing ideas. Since we all came in with different thought processes and experiences, we sometimes butted heads on design choices. By making sure to keep open minds, though, we were able to come up with a design that we’re all super proud of.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
Throughout Ready, Set, App!, we developed significantly as collaborators, programmers, and people. Coming into Senior Shoppers, most of us had pretty little coding experience — much less coding in a group. By looking into the workflows that actual professionals in the field use to work together, we were able to collaborate efficiently and (for the most part) avoid conflicts. We also grew significantly as programmers; we went from barely knowing Flutter to writing nearly a thousand lines of it! Plus, we learned all about database management, secure authentication methods, and design — crucial skills for future computer science projects and careers. But we’re definitely most proud of our growth as people. Throughout the last few months, we went from a ragtag group of random strangers from Providence High School to a well-oiled coding machine to a genuine group of friends — that’s worth way more than the skills we developed!
Future Plans
In the future, we plan to develop our app further to create a linear, more simple user experience that connects straight with the grocery store. This would include features such as product catalogs and payment details. Additionally, descriptions of items, add-on choices, and a shopping cart feature will also be included. Lastly, a matching system that connects an order with a local volunteer as well as a time estimate for the delivery. In short, we plan to create an app that has everything you need, where you need it — all in small, easy-to-use bits.
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