For our first hack day of 2023 we kicked off with a delicious theme around ‘Food’, with a side of the usual ‘free-for-all’ of course. Hackers were invited to think about all things edible, whether as an app, a new search method for recipes, a meal planner or perhaps a choose your own adventure game where your date is coming for dinner in an hour and a half, and you have decided, perhaps too ambitiously, to cook them an elaborate Ottolenghi recipe from the Guardian archives.
We produced and presented over 22 amazing hacks over the two-day event. These included: Migrating our tone/recipes page to our latest rendering tiers, A web browser extension to help users understand cooking language and become better cooks, making Guardian recipes microwave-friendly, a restaurant review mapper, implementing a Guardian app section for food content and a web browser extension to appeal to our tofu-eating readers.
Here is a selection of our best concepts and designs from the day:
Best conceptual hack: Bring it all Back
Sabina and Phil’s hack raised the issue of how, in some cases, the growth of large media organisations like the Guardian is at the expense of local news organisations. They proposed using the onward journey components on the Guardian website to promote relevant local media stories.
Most entertaining: The Guardian Wave
The Guardian Wave is a web browser extension which can turn any Guardian recipe into one which only needs a microwave. It aims to solve the common problem of wanting to cook an entire Nigel Slater roast dinner from the comfort of a hotel room with only basic cooking facilities. It boasts a convoluted interface inspired by home microwave design. Pizzas, salads, and even cocktails can be microwave-ready with just a few jabs of the “START/+30 SEC” button.
Most delicious: CRUMME - Creative Recipe Media Making Engine
The Creative Recipe Media Making Engine creates images for the steps in your recipe using AI so you don’t have to photograph (or even make) them. Simply paste in your recipe, hit generate and et voilà the amazing stable diffusion or DALL·E will think up some images for you to choose from for each step in your recipe.
Best Overall: Chef Mode
Chef Mode is a user-friendly recipe interface that simplifies cooking instructions. It presents recipes in a clear step-by-step format and offers the option to display ingredients for each step. Users can navigate through the recipe without touching their devices with voice commands such as “next step” or “previous step”, while “show ingredients” or “hide ingredients” conveniently toggle the ingredient list display.
As always, we would like to extend a well deserved congratulations to all the winners, as well as a huge thank you to everyone who participated and the many people behind the scenes who help make our hack days happen.
Finally, a quick word from our director of product design, Tricky Bassett:
These two days were a reminder of how many talented people work here, and what can be created when you have the right ingredients. The food-related ideas pitched are great as they focus on exploring new opportunities for the Guardian in this area. Thank you to everyone involved.
Till next time!