HackMIT 2020
Byte-Size Footprint
For HackMIT 2020, my team created an app to track the carbon footprint of your food. Users can track their footprint over time and see trends in what foods they eat are impacting the environment the most.
Web-Based Demo Github RepositoryMotivation
More and more people are interested in reducing their carbon footprint. Food can be a substantial part of an individual's carbon footprint, but it's not always immediately clear which foods have the worst impacts on the environment. Byte-Size Footprint quantifies this impact so that users can track their footprint and make changes to reduce it.
Source: shrinkthatfootprint.com
Accomplishments
We created an database to store data from the dataFIELD dataset containing the carbon footprint of different raw ingredients, and to store a persistent food diary. We created an API to interface with this database, and an app that lets you input the foods you eat each day and track trends over time. You can track the foods causing the biggest impact, and see which meals contribute the most to your carbon footprint. Much like calorie trackers, the goal is to identify these trends and make changes over time to limit your personal carbon footprint.
My Responsibilities
I focused on the tracking and trends functionality of the app. I created the main UI and functionality to input foods for each meal of the day, as well as the processing and visualization of trends over time. The main food diary page needed to be simple and hassle-free to use, as the goal is to encourage long-term tracking.
