## Inspiration

We **love** bubble tea a lot... but sometimes it gets expensive. Like any popular product on-trend, coffee, crispy chicken sandwiches and other fast foods, there's competition for the best value — and /tap.io.ca is here to get you to the best deals, based on your habits.

## What it does

Tap into your spending habits to find out where you can find the best deal for your next purchases with /tap.io.ca. /tap.io.ca tracks your spending habits in the background, analyzes your most frequent spending automatically and creates accurate, personalized recommendations for your daily use. With this information, /tap.io.ca is connected with local retailers and businesses, recommending better deals and locations for products you might buy.

## How we built it

Our team began by first looking through the challenges, deciding which were of interest to us and brainstorming various ideas. We focused on simple products that would fill a gap in a specific market and help individuals personalize their life. Once our idea was decided upon, we split the team into design and back-end teams. The design worked on the UI design and general branding while the back-end team researched specific libraries and python modules that would help us build the product.

## Challenges we ran into

Our team was not very equipped with the tools for app development. We had to do extensive research and set up to find the correct libraries to use. The set up and learning process took up a majority of our time and it left us with little time to build our product. However we were able to learn many new skills, tools and employ modules we previously didn’t use, which in itself was a great takeaway from this hackathon.

## Accomplishments that we're proud of

/tap.io.ca’s strength is with its branding. We feel like it captures the team’s energy and the attention of our target marketing very well. Our team is also very proud of the brainstorming process, as it was a time for the team to come together and share their most creative ideas without any restrictions. Finally, our ability to employ new learnings at such a quick pace allowed us to realize the potential of all the technologies out there that we have yet to learn.

## What we learned

We learned different skills and tools including flask, kivy and also improved upon our python knowledge and Figma skills. An especially important skill we gained was how to integrate API's to our project. This is a something that will be especially beneficial to us in the future. We also learned how to work effectively as a team, as there was not enough time to implement all of our ideas and delegating all the roles improved our efficiency greatly.

## What's next for /tap.io.ca

In the future, we hope to expand /tap.io.ca and grow its features. Some additional feature ideas include gamification, where users would be able to collect points for using our services and win rewards provided by local businesses we partner with. We also hope to expand our services from food and drinks into a multitude of products to provide easier financial tracking and analysis for everyone.
## Inspiration

Last week, my brother sprained his foot and we had to make a visit to the ER. Upon visit, we were told that the wait time was for 9.5 hours. Although we didn’t want to wait, we had no other choice. Turns out I was not the only one who faced this issue, it has been flagged all over Canada. In fact, just in the past month, several articles were written on this exact issue. Taking a look at this specific article from CTV News (<https://kitchener.ctvnews.ca/patients-admitted-to-hospital-from-er-waiting-average-of-over-20-hours-at-some-waterloo-region-hospitals-1.6070298>), it reports that this issue is prevalent right here in Waterloo, Ontario, with wait times reported being over 20+ hours. Having this as a communal experience, we can say with confidence that this is a major problem. This leads to increased COVID exposure, crowded and uncomfortable wait areas, and people may choose to not even go to the ER due to this, which only deteriorates their health condition.

## What it does

Due to this issue that we have all personally experienced, we were inspired to create FastER. FastER is an online web application that streamlines this process through a virtual cue for ER wait times. This way, patients with non-life threatening injuries can “wait” in the ER from the safety and comfort of their own homes. The application is only to be used for non-life threatening injuries, such as fractures, dislocations, rashes, etc.

FastER will be connected directly to the Ontario healthcare system's database, so that patients are aware of wait times in ER, and can add their name in it for non-life threatening injuries remotely. To use this application, individuals open the web application, write their names, health card number, and postal code, and the product prompts them to enter their symptoms in a checklist (warning them that for specific symptoms such as shortness of breath, they should see the ER immediately). Then the product provides them with 3 hospitals/ER rooms nearby, including information on their distances and wait times. An algorithm also exists so the product recommends/highlights a hospital that they go to by highlighting it green in the application, based on the distance and wait time information. It updates the wait times in real time through a pre-established connection to health Canada, and notifies the user when the wait time is increased and when the user should leave for the ER to make it on time.

## How we built it

We built this application together using HTML, CSS (bootstrap), javascript, and figma. As we do not have access to Health Canada's database, we created fake data to test this with as well.

## Challenges we ran into

A challenge we ran into was the front-end was quite difficult as we wanted to build an application that is as user-friendly as possible. We solved this through asking other hackers how they went about similar issues. Another challenge we ran into was a late start. Our team was originally 2 people each as our previous teams dropped out Saturday morning, and therefore we were all without a team and stressed. However, we posted on the Slack that we were looking for 2 members and explained our situation, and found each other. We worked hard and together to finish the project on time.

## Accomplishments that we're proud of

* working well and finishing a project even with the late start
* working and collaborating well with new team members

## What we learned

* finding a good team is crucial to building a well thought-out project
* the importance of a good front-end as well as back end

## What's next for FastER

* talking to Health Canada to partner up!
## Inspiration

We wanted to explore what GCP has to offer more in a practical sense, while trying to save money as poor students

## What it does

The app tracks you, and using Google Map's API, calculates a geofence that notifies the restaurants you are within vicinity to, and lets you load coupons that are valid.

## How we built it

React-native, Google Maps for pulling the location, python for the webscraper (*<https://www.retailmenot.ca/>*), Node.js for the backend, MongoDB to store authentication, location and coupons

## Challenges we ran into

React-Native was fairly new, linking a python script to a Node backend, connecting Node.js to react-native

## What we learned

New exposure APIs and gained experience on linking tools together

## What's next for Scrappy.io

Improvements to the web scraper, potentially expanding beyond restaurants.