Did you know 60% of Canada's food is thrown out every year? This food waste accounts for 1/3 of the total carbon footprint. With these statistics in mind we created Yum Trade with the goal of providing individuals with a surplus of food items a solution to reduce food waste and help the environment.
We created a website where people are able to trade their vegetables before they go bad, eliminating the previous waste of resources from thrown out veggies. A user would input their username and password and the information about the item they are selling. They would then be able to look at a map that contains all of the available trades around them and then chat with the trader they would like to swap with.
Our project was built using mainly Javascript, HTML, and CSS. We created two main HTML files where we embedded all our other components including the map, chat box, and user database. For the map, we used Google’s Geolocation API and mainly Javascript. For the chat box, we mainly used Node.js and Javascript to create a server where two local host’s can chat in real time. For the user database, we used Firebase to store the user input entered in the sign up page and then we used Javascript to get the database and embed it into the main page.
Our biggest challenges were firstly, time management. Since all our teammates were new to Hackathons, we had to be able to think of an effective yet manageable idea and implement that idea into a web application. Another challenge was working with libraries and platforms that were unfamiliar to us. Mainly working with Firebase, Node.js and API’s presented us with a challenge in learning topics and applying them quickly and effectively.
As this was our first hackathon as a team, we had no prior experience of the environment that we were going to be in. But nevertheless, as a team, we quickly and effectively came up with an idea, and with each member’s dedication to their parts, we were able to present a web application with multiple components (map, chat box and user database).
Not only did we learn that web development takes patience, skill and courage but it takes a good team. With each member putting in ideas and their own experiences, we could make our idea a reality. Also, we learned that web development is a complex task that takes many different frameworks, platforms, libraries and programming languages. And so, we are more motivated to learn how these build in to each other and create full-fledged websites.
For the future of YumTrade, we plan on making our website more user-friendly and interactive. We also aim to make our maps and chat more advanced in its technical components, for example having a chat option for each user, to make navigation easier. For our user database displayed, we would like to add more information about the product, for example its image. For now, we would inquire the users to ask for photographs in the chat but implementing it on each user’s profile would give a good idea of the person who wants to potentially swap. For the map, not only do we want the users to see their fellow swappers' distance to them, but we would like the user to see a pop-up of the swapper’s information when they hover over their location for easier navigation and use.