Grocery Guru

Members

• Maggie Archer,
• Anna Cossio,
• Amelia Delzell,
• Andrew O'Sullivan (TA)

Overview

As a WashU student living on the South 40, there is no more convenient one-stop shopping location than Paws & Go. This small grocery is a time-saver during slow hours, a money-saver in comparison to most campus dining, and carries countless options for those with dietary restrictions. Unfortunately, a frequent problem for many shoppers is the inconsistency of Paws & Go's inventory.

Many students desire a speedy shopping experience, hope to save meal points by purchasing ingredients to cook their own food, or depend on gluten-free and Kosher products on a daily basis. However, on account of Paws & Go routinely running out of even their most popular products for days or even weeks at a time, the needs of WashU students are not able to be satisfied.

We aim to eliminate these inefficient practices with our project by creating an iPhone app that allows the user to edit both a personal and public shopping list.

Personal: Each individual user has the option to utilize a barcode scanner that will scan a product and add it to their grocery list. They can add and delete items to their list, as well as save a particular product to a “Favorites” list so that it is easily accessible during their next shopping trip. One of the app’s functions will display all of the barcodes that were scanned during a particular trip, which can then be scanned quickly and efficiently at the check-out. The user will also have access to an estimated total price for their basket.

Public: As the user scans their item to their shopping list, it will be added to a full catalog of products that have been scanned on that particular day. Therefore, other customers can check the list to determine if the product they desire to purchase is available.

Objectives

1. Manually create a database of UPC numbers for Paws & Go Market
2. Create an intuitive mobile application in iOS using Xcode that allows a user to scan items as they pick them up at Paws & Go and generates a single-view page of barcodes for the items the user will purchase
3. Program a barcode scanner that can identify a grocery item based off of the UPC number, and add it to the list
4. In addition to the app's scanning capabilities, create a program that allows the user to manually input their grocery item. It will do this by identifying key words or the first few letters of items typed
5. Apply an algorithm that adds the individual costs of each item on the user's list and displays the list's total cost when prompted
6. Produce a list of grab-and-go items that have been purchased that day, based on purchased items that users scan into the app
7. Demo our project by scanning a random order of supplied items into the app so that it can add the items and their barcodes to the checkout list, provide a total cost of the user's list, and update the available grab-and-go items bought that day
8. Create a user interface for the app that displays the grocery list itemized by barcode and has an "add" menu that allows the user to add an item by navigating to a screen displaying a search bar for manual keyword search or to a camera which will scan barcodes
9. The app will also have a "today's grab-and-go items" screen that will display those items

Challenges

1. Learn how to create a mobile app for an iPhone
2. Learn how to code in Swift using the Xcode app developer
3. Learn how to code a barcode scanner into the mobile iOS app in Swift
4. Learn how to generate a barcode from a string in Swift
5. Find data for and create a database that efficiently stores product locations and UPC's
6. Learn how to set up a secure, public IP address so that users can update the list of items available
7. Learn how to navigate and use Amazon RDS for storing database of product data
8. Create a self-explanatory and easy-to-use application interface
9. Create a program that recognizes keywords so that it is not necessary for the user to input the exact product

Gantt Chart

Budget

1. Device with iOS (previously owned) - $0.00
2. Xcode 8.2.1 - $0.00 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/xcode/id497799835?ls=1&mt=12
3. Paws & Go Gluten Free Peanut Butter & Jelly - $3.25
4. Paws & Go Hummus & Pretzels - $2.60
5. Paws & Go House-made Potato Chips - $2.25
6. Chocolate Milk
7. Rold Gold Pretzels
8. Amazon RDS through Amazon Free Tier - $0.00 https://aws.amazon.com/free/

Total Budget: $13.21

App Outline