Risk Identification and Mitigation Strategies
Primary Risk Concern: Since our project did not progress much this week, our primary risk concern for this phase of the project is still being able to identify the expiration date correctly given the input image taken by our camera. There are many concerns regarding the accuracy of the data, as even the slightest error could lead to faults. For now, we will still focus on preprocessing mechanisms, as we have not implemented character recognition yet.
Mitigation Measures: Despite the planned preprocessing procedures we mentioned in the last status report, we still need to consider some things about expiration dates. For the input, we should take into consideration what would be the most common format for expiration dates. Although most USA products are in MM/DD/YYYY format, some products from the Asian food market may have YYYY/MM/DD format. This would imply that software would have to be able to distinguish between them.
Project Design Updates
As of the current reporting period, there have been no modifications to the initial design of the project.
Schedule and Timeline
We are on track with our timeline. Although we did not expect writing the design review report would take a week, we still have enough time for integration and testing.
Additional Questions:
A was written by Yuma Matsuoka, B was written by Jaesup Kim and C was written by Siyuan Li.
Part A
Our project is helping bridge the gap between those who do not have technical knowledge and those who do. In our society, people who have technical knowledge (i.e. students, young people) are able to utilize technologies such as the iPhone, applications, etc to make life easier. For example, those who are young are more likely to use mobile check-in for a flight than those who are old, who are likely to go to the airport early to print out physical passes. Our technology will not discriminate based on technical knowledge, as the entry to operation will be very low. The product will take less than 5 minutes to set up, and will be very intuitive to use. Furthermore, it will be a hard product, hopefully closing the idea gap that apps present. This hopefully will be a step in lowering the implicit accessibility barrier in using technology to simplify our lives.
Part B
Our project helps people from all cultures. Different cultures have different grocery items and foods, and also storage spaces to keep them fresh. Our scanner is able to work on any environment and any storage space, whether it be a fridge or pantry, or a chilled basement. Our product will count for all of those environmental aspects as well as condition of the items. Even products that come from a foreign origin with no barcode will work as you can manually enter the item.
Part C
Our project directly contributes to lessening the environmental impact associated with the disposal of food. Food waste contributes to a significant portion of methane emissions, a potent greenhouse gas, when it decomposes in landfills. By ensuring that families and individuals are reminded of expiration dates, IntelliStorage helps in making sure that groceries are consumed before they spoil, thereby decreasing the volume of food that ends up in landfills.
Moreover, our project’s efficient management system encourages users to make more conscious purchasing decisions. By having a better overview of what is already stocked at home, users can avoid overbuying, leading to not only less food waste but also a reduction in the carbon footprint associated with the transportation, and packaging of excess groceries.