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Established 2021 Logo

Oh Raspberries

created by Myriam Aviles, Tianna Calderon, and Makenzie Dorsey

Since 2019, we have been participating in hackathons as a four-person "Dream Team" determined to make a project using platforms and technologies unfamiliar to us. Unfortunately, one of our friends was unable to join us so we decided to dedicate our project to her.

Inspiration

We were inspired by our friend's favorite fruit, raspberries, and the mysteries contained in working with APIs. We have never worked with APIs before and upon further research about the plethora of APIs available to the public, we happened upon the Spoonacular API and decided to take on the challenge.

What is Oh Raspberries

Oh Raspberries is a website that provides the user with a recipe based on their choice of vitamins, their favorite fruit, or if they would like to try something new. Our responsive website is perfect for any device which would allow the user to find recipes at home or on the go.

What languages and platforms were utilized

We programmed our website using HTML, CSS, and Javascript. Due to previous collaboration issues we have faced before, we took advantage of Glitch.com because we are able to upload assets, create new project files, and edit code together in real-time. Additionally, it allowed us to export our code straight into our Github repository from our project space.

Challenges we faced

Some of the challenges we faced include registering a domain through Domain.com working with APIs for the first time, and re-learning how to build a website.

After we solidified our website idea, we needed to register with a service to get our own personal domain name. Going through the AWS platform after previous trial and errors with Domain.com proved to be challenging and it took hours to find the information we were looking for. By the time we went through out primary, alternate, and contingency plan for web hosting, our domain name through Domain.com finally worked.

APIs are something we have never worked with before. Though we have all been exposed to their remarkable abilities, getting the API to fetch and display information is easier said than done. After the workshop and subsequent YouTube tutorials, a breakthrough was reached.

Despite us all having experience with programming, we have not made a website since 2017 as a school project. While we had basic knowledge of HTML tags and CSS styling, we had to learn more about formatting, JavaScript functions, and personalizing the webpage to our tastes.

Accomplishments we are proud of

We are extremely proud to have implemented the Spoonacular API into our project despite the challenges faced involving getting information from the API and learning how to display it within our project. Though we did deviate from our original design plan, we are all over the moon with our project and were able to achieve more than we originally imagined.

What we learned

We have learned that

"teamwork makes the dream work" - Myriam

and to always have alternate routes in case things do not go as planned. It was not possible to avoid every single obstacle that came our way and we learned to work around them using creative solutions. We have also learned that it is easier to delegate tasks rather than have everyone working on different aspects of the project at a time.

Future directions for Oh Raspberries

In the future, we would like to implement a map API that would allow the user to locate grocery stores and markets in their area that have the ingredients they need for their meal. It would also be a bonus to allow user the ability to select multiple categories of fruits and vitamins they would like to include in their meal. Lastly, we would like to make a similar website called Oh Broccoli that would provide the same features but with a distinct focus on vegetables instead of fruits.