There are local restaurants and cafes that people never check out simply because they are not aware of their existence or sure of their quality. In order to support these small businesses, we wanted to develop an app that helps get their name out there, promoting their business in an easily digestible format.
Project-RNDR is an Android/IOS app that allows users to browse local restaurants in their area based on criteria such as distance and menu. Filtered restaurants are then presented one by one like a stack of cards, with each card presenting the name of the restaurant, location, and some items from the menu. Users can go through the list by swiping left on each card, and if the user finds a restaurant they like, they can swipe right on the card. Doing so will present the user with more detailed information and directions to the establishment.
We used the Google Maps API to get information on local restaurants based on criteria given by the user. We used Flask to store and connect the information obtained from the API. We used Flutter to display the information as cards and deploy the app on Android and IOS.
Learning the structure of Flutter was a challenge as none of us had ever used the SDK before. There were small syntax details that were very easy to miss, and learning there was a decent learning curve to creating different widgets to display what we wanted.
We’re very proud of how the app looks visually. This was our first time developing anything for a mobile device, so creating a working mobile application is a pretty big win for us.
We learned the basics of Flutter and how we can use the SDK to deploy mobile apps. We were also able to observe the similarities and differences between front-end design for mobile apps vs web apps.
The UI is still barebones, so we’d like to improve the app on that front. As well, we’d like to expand the range of criteria and information we can present to the user.