Project Overview

BET 350 Final Project
Timeline: 4 weeks (2025)
My Role: Lead Product Designer

As a first-year university student, I experienced and witnessed firsthand how overwhelming it can be to figure out meals, budget properly, and make healthy choices with limited time and resources. So I thought to myself:

Meet MealMate

An all-in-one solution for university students looking to improve their cooking skills and make cooking a part of their busy lives.

AI Ingredient Detection & Recipe Suggestor

Let’s face it—our parents buy us groceries, but using them efficiently isn’t always easy. To solve this, we designed a smart ingredient-detecting camera that generates personalized recipes based on difficulty and prep time.

Guided Cooking

Once you select a recipe, you can follow along through both video and text, complete with clear measurement breakdowns for every ingredient.

Community

After cooking, you can upload a photo of your dish for your friends and university community to see. With the info icon, anyone can check out the exact recipe you followed. It’s a space to celebrate growth, cheer each other on, and build connections through food.

Lessons Learned

Building MealMate taught us that even simple daily decisions—like what to cook—can feel overwhelming for students navigating independence for the first time. By blending AI, community, and accessible design, we learned how powerful it can be to turn everyday challenges into opportunities for connection and confidence. Most importantly, this project reminded us that food isn’t just about ingredients; it’s about supporting each other, learning together, and feeling a little more at home in a new stage of life.