project-proposal-2025

NoWaste Plate

Abstract

NoWaste Plate is a web-based application developed to assist student accommodations in reducing food waste and improving meal planning. In traditional hostel settings, meals are cooked in bulk based on assumed attendance. However, students often miss meals due to university schedules, personal reasons, or simply because they dislike certain dishes. This leads to considerable food wastage and inefficiencies in kitchen management. NoWaste Plate offers a practical and sustainable solution by allowing students to notify the kitchen in advance if they plan to skip a meal or specific menu items. With real-time data collected through the platform, kitchen staff can better plan ingredient quantities and meal portions, minimizing unnecessary preparation.

Author

Name: Sahajdeep Singh Narang

Student number: 48205339

Functionality

NoWaste Plate offers the following core features:

• Student Web Portal:
  • Log in with student ID to access the meal dashboard.
  • View upcoming meals and opt in or out of breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
  • View the menu for each meal and select dishes they want to skip.
  • Save dietary preferences or restrictions for future auto-fill.
• Kitchen Dashboard:
  • Display the total number of students attending each meal.
  • Break down how many students will eat each specific dish.
  • Highlight patterns such as consistently skipped items.
• Admin Interface:
  • Input daily menus and edit them in real time.
  • Set deadlines for student submissions for each meal.
  • Generate basic reports on attendance and food usage.
• Notifications and Reminders:
  • Automatic reminders for students to submit their meal attendance.
  • Optional alerts for kitchen staff if predicted attendance significantly drops or spikes.
• Data and Reporting:
  • Weekly summaries on food usage and student preferences.
  • Track estimated waste reduction over time.

Scope

The Minimum Viable Product (MVP) will focus on essential features to validate the system:

• A web interface for students to:
  • Mark attendance (Yes/No) for meals.
  • View a menu of 3–4 items and opt out of unwanted dishes.
• A basic dashboard for kitchen staff to:
  • View meal attendance counts.
  • See dish-specific breakdowns.
• An admin view to:
  • Set menus for each day.
  • Configure submission deadlines.
• A simple notification system using web pop-ups or alerts to prompt submission.

The MVP will not include user authentication, mobile apps, detailed analytics, or cross-day scheduling—these are planned for future iterations.

Quality Attributes

Availability

NoWaste Plate must be reliably accessible to students when they are likely to submit meal attendance—typically 1 to 3 hours before each meal.

• How it will be achieved:
  • Hosted on a cloud platform to ensure high uptime.
  • Lightweight frontend framework (React or Vue) for fast load times.
  • Minimal API dependencies and caching for offline support (if needed).
• How it will be measured:
  • Load testing during simulated peak times.
  • Uptime tracking tools.
  • Student surveys about accessibility and performance.

Maintainability

The system needs to be easy to update, whether it’s changing the menu, modifying submission rules, or adjusting the UI.

• How it will be achieved:
  • Modular code structure using component-based frontend design.
  • Config-driven back-end logic for menus and deadlines.
  • Clear separation of frontend, backend, and database concerns.
• How it will be measured:
  • Time to implement changes like updating dish names or adding new fields.
  • Number of bugs introduced during updates.
  • Feedback from developers about ease of modification.

Extensibility

As user needs grow, the system should support new features without major rewrites.

• How it will be achieved:
  • Use of plugin-like architecture for dashboard components and menus.
  • Extensible database schema for future additions like allergy preferences, nutrition tracking, or recurring schedules.
• How it will be measured:
  • Test by adding a new feature post-MVP (e.g., weekly planning).
  • Monitor how much core code needs to change.
  • Evaluate if the architecture supports modular enhancements.

Evaluation

Availability Evaluation:

• Conduct performance tests with mock users submitting meal entries before lunch.
• Measure response time and load time.
• Collect student feedback on system reliability.

Maintainability Evaluation:

• Perform a controlled change: add a 5th menu item.
• Measure developer time and difficulty.
• Run regression tests to confirm other components work.

Extensibility Evaluation:

• Implement a dietary preference saving feature post-MVP.
• Track integration effort and whether the existing structure supports it.
• Get feedback from developers on whether modularity was preserved.

By aligning the platform with these quality attributes and conducting meaningful evaluations, NoWaste Plate aims to deliver an efficient, maintainable, and impactful system for reducing food waste in student accommodation settings.