Aura

Experience a new way of emotional support. Our AI companion is here to listen, understand, and guide you through life's journey.

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Inspiration

The inspiration for Aura came from a desire to make mental health support more accessible, interactive, and data-driven. With the growing need for remote wellness tools, we set out to build a platform that combines AI-driven therapy, mood tracking, and engaging activities to help users manage their mental well-being in a modern, approachable way.

What it does

Aura is a full-stack web application that empowers users to:

  • Track their mood and log daily activities
  • Engage in AI-powered therapy chat sessions
  • View real-time wellness stats and personalized insights on a dashboard
  • Participate in interactive games and mindfulness activities
  • Review their mood and activity history, all in one place

How we built it

  • Frontend: Built with Next.js and React, using TypeScript for type safety. The UI is modular, featuring components for mood tracking, activity logging, therapy sessions, and games.
  • Backend: Node.js with Express, connected to MongoDB for persistent storage. The backend exposes RESTful APIs for authentication, mood/activity management, and chat sessions.
  • Authentication: JWT-based authentication ensures secure access to user data and actions.
  • Real-time Data: The dashboard fetches real-time stats and history from the backend, updating mood scores, activity logs, and session counts dynamically.
  • AI Integration: Therapy chat sessions are powered by AI, providing users with conversational support and personalized insights.
  • DevOps: The project uses environment variables for configuration and supports both local and cloud deployment.

Challenges we ran into

  • Data Consistency: Keeping mood and activity data in sync between frontend and backend, especially with real-time updates and multiple users.
  • Authentication Flow: Handling token storage, session expiration, and protected routes required careful design to avoid security pitfalls.
  • State Synchronization: Ensuring the UI always reflects the latest data after every user action, especially when mixing static demo data and real backend data.
  • Error Handling: Building robust error messages and fallback UI for network/API failures.
  • Windows File Locks: Encountered file locking issues on Windows (e.g., .next/trace), which required process management and cleanup scripts.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

  • Seamless integration of AI-powered therapy chat with mood and activity tracking
  • Real-time dashboard updates and personalized insights
  • Clean, accessible, and engaging UI/UX for wellness tracking
  • Robust backend API design and secure authentication

What we learned

  • Deepened our understanding of full-stack integration, state management, and MongoDB data modeling
  • Gained experience in building robust RESTful APIs and handling asynchronous data fetching in React
  • Explored modern UI/UX patterns for wellness apps
  • Learned to handle real-world development issues, like file locks and error boundaries

What's next for Aura

  • Mobile App: Expand Aura to mobile platforms for on-the-go wellness tracking
  • Improved Features: There are quite some features that are not yet fully functional and that's where the focus is going to be
  • Advanced Analytics: Add more advanced mood and activity analytics, including trends and recommendations
  • Community Features: Enable group sessions, peer support, and community-driven activities
  • Integrations: Connect with wearables and third-party health apps for richer data
  • Accessibility: Continue improving accessibility and inclusivity for all users

Aura is a step toward blending technology and empathy, aiming to make mental health support more approachable, interactive, and data-driven.

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