De Anza Link

Inspiration

At De Anza, we noticed that most students want to meet people, but everyone waits for someone else to make the first move. One of us joined an informal Friday soccer game that turned strangers into friends just by giving everyone a shared activity, a time, and a place. We wanted to make that happen on purpose. We also noticed that many students never hear about campus resources like free food and bike rentals.

What it does

DeAnzaLink lets De Anza students pick their interests, browse small activities on campus, and join with one tap. The activity gives everyone a reason to talk, so nobody has to break the ice alone. An AI assistant also answers questions about De Anza resources.

How we built it

We used Next.js, TypeScript, and Tailwind CSS for the app, Supabase for the database, login, and photo storage, and the Claude API for the resources assistant. The assistant only answers from a list of real De Anza resources we collected, so it does not make things up.

Challenges we ran into

We had 24 hours, so we cut features like schedule matching and an AI icebreaker for group chats to focus on one complete flow. We also had to keep three people and their AI coding tools working on the same code without conflicts, and we could not verify students without access to De Anza’s systems.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

What we learned

Students do not need another social feed. They need an easy reason to show up. We also learned to keep AI answers grounded in trusted data and that finishing one feature beats starting five.