Groupzy

The ultimate app for creating/finding study groups. Minimises distractions whilst optimising focus when studying with others. Encourages friendly competition with peers for points and rewards.

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https://starthack-2024-bysebts-projects.vercel.app/

What is Groupzy?

A social platform built with Next.js for students to find study groups, log sessions, connect with friends and compete on leaderboards for rewards.

What it does

  • Create Study Groups: Students can create study groups based on location and study topic.
  • Find Study Groups: Students can enter their location, and a list of nearby group will show up. Businesses can sponsor us to have their location displayed at the top.
  • Log Study Sessions: We collect statistics about time studied and study streak.
  • Friends: Students can add other students as friends to view social posts and join friend-only groups.
  • Leaderboard: Compete with friends and classmates on weekly, monthly, yearly and lifetime leaderboards.
  • Distraction Locking: Chrome extension and mobile app to lock users from accessing distractions such as social media and games.
  • Social Feed: For students to connect and share their achievements, upcoming sessions. Businesses can sponsor posts on this feed.
  • Responsive: Beautiful on devices of all sizes.

How we built it

  • Frontend: Next.js 14 with TailwindCSS & Ant Design 5.
  • Backend: React server actions connected to a Google Firebase Firestore database.
  • Authentication: Firebase Auth with Gmail login integration.

Challenges we ran into

  • The social aspect of the app, including how willing students are to use it, physical security and addressing cheating.
  • Learning about and debugging new React and Next features like Server Actions and Server Components.
  • Implementing the Google Maps API for auto complete suggestions.
  • Maintaining low costs and navigating between cloud providers.
  • How to efficiently update the leaderboards.
  • Security of our backend API with Server Actions.

Inspiration

Inspired by students often finding it difficult to connect with like-minded peers for group study sessions, Groupzy offers a platform for students to find, create and join study groups based on their location and specific study interests.

Furthermore, in today's hyper-connected world, students face unprecedented challenges in maintaining focus during study sessions. The constant buzz of notifications and the temptation to check social media can derail even the most dedicated learners.

We were inspired to create Groupzy after observing how difficult it was for our peers to find distraction-free study environments and like-minded study partners. We wanted to combine the social aspect of group studying with the focus-enhancing benefits of digital detox, all wrapped in a motivating, competitive and gamified experience.

What we learned

  • Implementing real-time updates for leaderboards taught us valuable lessons about efficient data streaming and state management in Next.js and Firebase.
  • Utilising server actions for backend operations improved our understanding of the balance between client-side and server-side processing in modern web applications.

What's next for Groupzy

  • Implement a map view to visually see any study groups occurring around the current user's location.
  • A feed view for users to see what study groups are occurring soon that match the current user's interest

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