created by Myriam Aviles, Tianna Calderon, and Makenzie Dorsey
Since 2019, we have been participating in hackathons as a four person "Dream Team" determined make a project using platforms and technologies unfamiliar to us. Unfortunately, one of our friend was unable to join us so we decided to dedicate our project to her.
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 tnd 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.
Oh Raspberries is a website that provides the user with a recipe based on their choice of vitamins they want to boost, 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 recipies at home or on the go.
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 togehter in real time. Additionally, it allows us to export our code straight into our Github respository from our project space.
Some of the challenges we faced include registering a domain through AWS, 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 AWS services and trying to obtain the specific information we were looking for took hours. By the time we went through out primary, alterante, and cotingency plan for web hosting, our domain name 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.
We are extermely 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.
We have learned that
"teamwork makes the dream work" - Myriam
and to always have alternate plans 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 in creative ways. 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.
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 helpful to let the user know if their particular ingredients are in season. Lastly, we would hopefully like to make a similar website based on vegetables called Oh Broccoli.