HACK-CU-ECO

• 

  Technologies

Inspiration Eco-Cycle has 1,000+ volunteers losing connection through a broken email system. We wanted to fix that with a real, usable tool.

What it does A central volunteer hub with push notifications, event calendar, opportunity sign-ups, Slack-style chatrooms, carpool coordination, training resources, and badge tracking for both volunteers and coordinators.

How we built it React + TypeScript frontend deployed on GitHub Pages. Node/Express backend with JWT auth, Socket.IO, and in-memory data. Gemini API for AI recommendations and chat recaps. ElevenLabs for voice accessibility.

Challenges we ran into Keeping the live demo stable without a deployed backend. Scoping realistically for two people in 24 hours. Making AI fallbacks graceful when API keys aren't present.

Accomplishments that we're proud of Shipping every feature Eco-Cycle asked for, fully functional, role-aware, and live, as a two-person team in under 24 hours.

What we learned How to build role-aware architecture cleanly. How to use Gemini for contextual AI features. How to scope a real product under time pressure.

What's next for HACK-CU-ECO Deploy the backend on Railway. Enable real MongoDB persistence. Add coordinator analytics. Open the platform to other Boulder nonprofits.

Built With

• bcrypt
• elevenlabs-api
• express.js
• gemini-api
• github
• jwt
• mongodb
• node.js
• react
• socket.io
• tailwind-css
• typescript
• vite