Inspiration

We've been traveling to many different locations, in which the bathrooms and stairs have had many problems. It would be nice to know about these hazards, and important for people who are immunocompromised or have other conditions. So, we wanted to build an app where people can report problems so others can learn and benefit from that info.

What it does

Users pin and describe safety hazards on a live community map so neighbors, especially those with conditions, can navigate more safely.

How we built it

React + Expo frontend, Express backend on Vultr VPS, MongoDB Atlas for storage, Clerk for auth, and Expo Push Notifications for alerts. We also used Leaflet to manage the map.

Challenges we ran into

Geospatial indexing, cross-device Atlas IP whitelisting, and wiring push notifications to proximity-based triggers under time pressure.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Functional end-to-end pipeline, report submission, live map rendering, and DB persistence, all shipped within the hackathon window.

What we learned

Scope ruthlessly early. A focused MVP for a specific user need beats a broad half-finished build every time.

What's next for Hazard Hound

Authority dashboard, duplicate report clustering, severity filtering, and city-level API integrations for automated hazard resolution tracking.

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