Inspiration

As university students, we constantly feel overwhelmed balancing Moodle deadlines, internship applications and revision. We wanted a single tool that acts as an intelligent personal assistant - guiding students rather than just reminding them.

What it does

Beacon is an AI-powered study companion for UK university students. It manages your tasks by priority, tracks internship deadlines, and uses a Socratic AI tutor to help you understand your coursework.

How we built it

  • Backend: FastAPI + Python hosted and connected to MongoDB Atlas for task and user data storage
  • Frontend: HTML
  • AI: Google Gemini API for the Socratic tutor
  • Voice: ElevenLabs voice for the daily briefing

Challenges we ran into

  • Connecting the frontend and backend across different laptops during the hackathon
  • Handling MongoDB authentication and database connections
  • Integrating multiple APIs within the time limit

Accomplishments that we're proud of

  • Built a fully working REST API backend from scratch
  • Successfully connected MongoDB Atlas to store real data
  • Integrated Gemini AI as a Socratic tutor

What we learned

  • How to build and deploy a REST API with FastAPI
  • How to structure a team project under time pressure
  • How to integrate multiple APIs into one product

What's next for Beacon

  • Real Moodle integration via SSO
  • Presage biometric focus detection
  • Mobile app

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