Challenge

In 2014, only a quarter of parents stated that they would prepare packed sandwiches for their children in the morning.

 

Difficulty

The number of overweight children has increased significantly in the last decade. For many schoolchildren there is no balanced and healthy meal available. This leads to lack of concentration and consequently to poor school performance.

 

Goals

In the future, students should be guaranteed a balanced meal during breaks. The individual needs should be still addressed. Through the independent purchase the »coolness and independence« — as young people proudly describe buying their sandwiches by themselves — remain.

 

Concept

A vending machine that offers a high degree of flexibility in the selection of  snacks will improve the care of the children by taking into account their individual needs. An app-controlled pre-selection and payment function allows more children to get their snacks in less time. Through the app and a linked web account parents still have a say in their children's nutrition. They can view the buying behaviour of their children, set a monetary limit and adjust restrictions on food (for example allergies).

Implementation

In numerous iterations, the assumptions of the project were revised through interviews, observations and user tests. In order to solve the nutrition problem in schools, we developed a startup which takes over the preparation of the snacks and the delivery to the schools using specially developed vending machines with NFC technology. The implementation includes the financial, organizational as well as conceptual, design aspects — from the business plan to the snack preparation to the app.

 

HfG Schwäbisch Gmünd, 1st term 2015 (MA)

Lecturer: Prof. Marc Guntow , Project partners: Sabine Dziebowski,

Jonas Heilgeist, Stephanie Rohrmüller