This year, our dining hall has brought about a new change in its way of delivering services to the Calvin community. Steve McBride, the director for Dining Services, explains how this new system functions. According to McBride, this new system is called Lucova. For about 12 to 13 years, Calvin’s dining services has been running on an old system called Cboard. This system, year after year, began to fall short of this modern era of technological advancements.

The Cboard system could not match up with this growing world of smart devices, hence the decision to have it replaced. What makes Lucova special? McBride explains that this system includes multiple features which have facilitated the delivery of dining services to the entire community quite efficiently.

First, this system allows students to see their meal plan option as well as allows them to check how much they have left on their plan. Moreover, the system includes an app called Eatable which enables students to visit the dining halls without their student ID card; all they need to do is download the app on their smart devices, walk near the register at the front door and let the system recognize them. There is no need to swipe or scan because the system works on a wireless platform such that once both devices are connected to the internet, it recognizes the student based on proximity and completes the verification process on its own by comparing the students profile information with that of the school’s data.

The app also allows a student to use their meal plan option as well as Knight Bucks at both Johnny’s and the Fish House. This means students are not required to have their ID cards in order to grab a meal on the go.

Even more exciting, McBride tells Chimes that students can sync their personal debit or credit card to this system so that in the event that a student runs out of Knight Bucks, they can still purchase food from Johnny’s or the Fish House without physically having their credit card.

However, one place students cannot use this system is in the Campus Store since a link has not been established between the two systems.

With all these massive changes, McBride informs Chimes that the dining hall seeks to improve on this system and that at present, the entire system is in its infant stage. Thus, there are plans to extend the capabilities of this app to enable students to view the menu in the dining halls before arriving and even place an order in Johnny’s for pick up.