In preparation for The Mayflower Community’s new Open Dining program, Scott Gruhn, Director of Food Services, worked during the spring semester with a team of Grinnell College students to create a computer application to manage the menu. The students shared their work at an end-of-semester presentation to an audience of other students in the computer applications class as well as College staff and Mayflower staff.
The students’ demonstration was a high-level discussion of the mission of the community partner, the project goals, and the resulting software. The computer application is designed to capture meal orders and create production orders for residents, staff, and guests.
The instructors for the Software Design and Development course (CSC 324) were assistant professors of computer science, Barbara Z. Johnson and Anya Vostinar. The five students are pictured above with Susan Sanning (far left), Assistant Dean and Director of Services and Innovation, who coordinated the students/community partners connection, and Scott Gruhn (4th from left), Mayflower’s Director of Food Services.
The longer term plan is to go paperless and then to add recipes, to connect to inventory, and finally to generate vendor orders. Additional components will be online reservations for meeting space and meals, payment systems, comments, and ordering in the dining area connected directly to the kitchen.
— Bob Mann, Sales & Marketing Director
