Zhifan Li is the OIT Ambassador for Lovett College and a senior at Rice University. Last month she attended the HackRice 2016 hackathon event at Rice University, and worked on a project that was voted the “Best Community Hack” by the other attendees.
Video of Menuer in action from HackRice.
Why did you decide to compete in HackRice?
Zhifan: I’ve participated in HackRice since my freshman year, and I’ve always enjoyed the experience. This is my last year at Rice before I graduate, so I really wanted to do it this year because it is my last opportunity to compete as a Rice student.
You said you’ve been doing HackRice since you were a freshman. How was this year’s HackRice different from past ones?
Zhifan: HackRice is definitely expanding. The number of participants is getting larger and more diverse since people are coming from outside Rice to compete. Also, we’ve changed the location where HackRice is held. We’ve moved from Brockman 101, a relatively small classroom, to the Grand Hall, which is a lot larger.
What project did you work on this year at HackRice?
Zhifan: I worked on an iOS app called Menuer. What it does is that it helps you solve the problem of not recognizing certain dishes as you go through the menu at a restaurant. Whenever you encounter a dish that you don’t know, you take a picture of the menu and the app provides you with a picture of the dish to show you what it looks like and what ingredients it may contain.
How many people were on your team and what were their backgrounds?
Zhifan: There were four people on our team. Three seniors: Ziliang Zhu, Wei Zeng, and myself, and one junior: Anna Chi. Anna and I worked on the back-end development for the app. Ziliang and Wei were responsible for the front-end of the app.
What is your background and major?
Zhifan: I’m a computer science and psychology double major. Most of the jobs that I’ve done at internships and that I plan on doing full-time are more front-end focused. I see hackathons as an opportunity to explore different areas of development, in this case specifically back-end development.
How did your group decide to work on this project?
Zhifan: Before HackRice we had dinner together, trying to brainstorm ideas for our project. We went through a lot of ideas, and when we got to ordering our food we found that it would be very useful to have a tool that would help us know what certain dishes are like, especially since we are all international students and we have the pain-point of not recognizing certain dishes in the menu. We’ll definitely use it as a helpful tool after we finish developing it.
I heard you used Bing to search for images of the dishes. Why did your group decide to use Bing as opposed to another search engine?
Zhifan: Yes. We used Bing because we were aiming for a specific Microsoft prize, which required us to use their API.
How did you meet your team?
Zhifan: I had worked with two of my team members before at HackRice in previous years, and the fourth member told me earlier that she wanted to work with us at HackRice, so we all knew each other before the event.
Tags: HackRice