EcoEats was my first hackathon project, where I took on the challenge of building a carbon-conscious recipe platform using vanilla web technologies. The project aimed to help users reduce their carbon footprint by discovering and cooking with seasonal, locally-available ingredients. This served as both an environmental initiative and a practical exercise in fundamental web development concepts.

Our development process, while enthusiastic, suffered from a lack of proper planning and structure. We immediately jumped into coding with vanilla JavaScript, HTML, and CSS, driven by the excitement of building our vision. Initial development focused on various features in isolation: • Building a basic grid layout for displaying seasonal ingredients and recipes • Setting up ingredient seasonality data structures and recipe filtering • Implementing carbon footprint calculation algorithms • Creating user recipe storage and favorites system However, without a clear architectural plan, these components were developed in isolation without considering how they would integrate. This led to inconsistent patterns across features and mounting technical debt as the project progressed.

Despite our planning challenges, we managed to implement some basic functionality: • A basic responsive layout for displaying seasonal ingredients • Interactive filtering system for ingredient seasonality • Recipe search based on available seasonal ingredients While the final prototype demonstrated the core concept of sustainable cooking through seasonal ingredients, many features were fragile and required constant maintenance. The lack of initial planning meant that while individual components worked, their integration was not as seamless as intended.

The biggest challenge stemmed from inadequate planning and an over-reliance on ad-hoc development. While we had a clear vision of what we wanted to build, we didn't properly architect how to get there. This led to a cascade of issues: features were implemented without considering their interactions, state management became increasingly chaotic, and the codebase grew more brittle with each addition. The lack of structure meant that bugs became exponentially harder to track and fix. What should have been simple feature additions turned into hours of debugging sessions, as changes in one area would unexpectedly break functionality in others. We found ourselves spending more time fixing regressions than implementing new features, significantly impacting our productivity and morale. This experience starkly illustrated the importance of proper planning and architecture, even in time-constrained environments. While we eventually managed to deliver a working prototype, the development process was far more challenging and time-consuming than necessary due to our initial rush to start coding without a solid foundation.

EcoEats was a pivotal learning experience that taught me the critical importance of proper planning and architecture, even in rapid development environments like hackathons. While our vision of reducing carbon footprints through seasonal cooking was compelling, the challenges we faced due to inadequate planning and ad-hoc development became a powerful lesson in what not to do. The project helped me understand that taking time for initial architecture and planning isn't just bureaucracy - it's a crucial investment that pays dividends throughout development. Features like carbon footprint calculation and seasonal ingredient matching required complex data relationships that should have been properly modeled from the start. In subsequent projects, I've adopted a more structured approach, always starting with a clear architectural plan and development strategy, even under time constraints. Most importantly, I learned that enthusiasm for coding needs to be balanced with disciplined software engineering practices. While we eventually delivered a working prototype that demonstrated the potential for technology to promote sustainable cooking, the experience shaped my approach to all future projects, where I now ensure proper planning and architecture are in place before diving into implementation.