Orbital Project - Frinner

http://orbital-project.herokuapp.com/

Sample Login:

Username: johnathan97 Password: password

Introduction

Proposed Level of Achievement:

Gemini

Target Audience:

NUS Hall/ Residential Colleges

Motivation:

Hall caterers will prepare food for the total number of people staying in a given hall or RC. One may not consume their meals and this would lead to a wastage of food. Hence to solve this problem we have decided to create a web app that allow users to seamlessly attain matriculation numbers of those students that are not eating. This not only solves the problem of food wastage but also allows a hungry student to get a second serving or he could invite his friends that don’t stay in the hall to come have a meal with him.

Aim

We hope to make sharing of frinners a pleasant experience and as such encourage the sharing of frinners to prevent food wastage.

User Stories

1. As a student, I would like to be able to give and take frinners easily.
2. As a student, I would like to be able to give and take frinners to/from anyone in my hall/RC, not just my circle of friends.
3. As a student, I would like to have a log of how often I have given and taken frinners.

Functionalities Implemented:

Scope

The Webapp provides a simple user-friendly interface for users to give and take frinners as well as view previous entries with ease.

Webapp

Technologies

1. Laravel Framework for Backend
2. Laravel Blade Templating for Frontend
3. Bootstrap for Styling

Functions

1. Login/Registration Authentication System with Password Hashing
2. User Dashboard with their paginated personal Frinner history
3. Give/Take Frinner functionality
4. System checking to prevent duplicate frinner given as well as controlling number of frinners taken
5. Priority Queue system that allows pre-requesting of frinners that are fulfilled when frinners are provided by other users
6. Profile & Profile edit
7. Delete of untaken frinners or remove from queue whilst frinner has not been given

Software Engineering Principles

Model System

Models

1. User model holds important information about the user such as name, username, hashed password and matriculation card number.
2. Frinner model holds information about the specific given frinner (giver, taker)
3. FrinnerQueue model holds information about the users in the queue.

Relationships

1. User model has 2 one-to-many relationships with Frinner model

   • One relationship for given frinners
   • One relationship for taken frinners

2. User model has 1 one-to-many relationship with FrinnerQueue model.

Issues Encountered

Implementation

1. Difficulty in creating a queue system for the frinners (solved)

   • Solution: Create a separate FrinnerQueue model table that specifically stores the users who are currently queuing.

2. Difficulty in decoupling the backend and frontend

   • Current System too reliant on transmitting specific data directly from backend to frontend before display
   • Proposed Solution: Try to abstract functions (such as getters and setters) out into small unit level soApp that it would be easier to be implemented into a http request based API.

3. Difficulty in setting up the telegram bot

   • Requires an API as well as token based authentication that we were unable to implement.

4. Ethical issues of providing matriculation numbers to other users.

   • Worry that users can just "keep" the numbers and used.
   • Workarounds: System is based on a social trust contract system. However, since the system is able to log each taking of frinners, it will be easier to track who has access to a hogged matriculation card number.

User Testing

Testing was done via peer review as well as our friends.

Issues

1. Unable to delete frinners before it is taken by someone. (Fixed)
2. Unable to edit my matriculation card number if I initially input the wrong number while signing up. (Fixed)
3. Unable to remove myself from the queue if I had decided not to take the frinner. (Fixed)
4. No way to notify if I have successfully received a frinner while being in the queue. (Not Fixed)
   • Unfortunately we were unable to implement a notification system for the app.

Feedback

Feature	Rating (X/10)	Feedback
Login/Registration	10/10	Simple and hassle-free login system with input validation to prevent edge cases.
User Dashboard	8/10	Simple interface with pagination allows easy usage on mobile devices.
Give/ Take Function	7/10	Easy to use give/take system but could be extended to further increase privacy.
Duplicate Prevention	10/10	System swiftly detected duplicates and prevented recurring actions.
User Profile; Profile Editing	6/10	No implementation of password reset.
Queue System	8/10	Innovating solution of implementing queue system. A possible improvement to increase efficiency of attaining Frinners would be to indicate the estimated waiting time for Frinners for better user experience.

Project Log

S/N	Task	Orbitee 1 (hours)	Orbitee 2 (hours)
x	Milestone 1
1	Liftoff	1	1
2	Poster and Video Creation	3	3
3	Mission Control 1 and its preparation	3	0
4	Team meeting & initial planning. Delegated Roles & Discussed Tech Stack Required	10	10
5	Programming at home: Learnt how to create a basic web app	12	15
6	Programming at home: Creating skeleton of webapp	6	6
7	Team meeting Milestone I Preparation & Backend Database Discussion	5	5
x	Milestone 2
8	Evaluating other teams	2	2
9	Reviewing feedback	2	2
10	Prototype development (Log in and Registration)	8	8
11	Prototype development (Dashboard)	10	10
12	Prototype development (Give and Take Frinner)	7	7
13	Prototype development (Queue System)	7	7
14	Video preparation	4	4
15	Team Meeting: Finalised Prototype and Milestone Preparation	4	4
x	Milestone 3
16	Evaluating Other Teams	2	2
17	Team Meeting: Reviewing Feedback	4	4
18	Prototype Development (Implemented Feature where Users are able to edit their Profile)	7	7
19	Prototype Development (Implemented Feature where user can be removed from queue if user hasn't been given a Frinner or delete untaken frinner)	9	9
20	Prototype Development (Troubleshooting & Debugging)	8	8
21	Self-Directed Learning of Telegram Bot	20	20
22	Team Meeting: Called off Implementation of Telegram Bot	2	2
23	Editing Poster	1	1
24	Gathering of User Feedback	10	10
25	Team Meeting: Discussion for Milestone Submission	2	2
26	Team Meeting: Preparation for Milestone Submission	10	10
27	Team Meeting: Final Touches	2	2

Total hours	Orbitee 1 (hours)	Orbitee 2 (hours)
322	161	161