Handoff

Inspiration

Imagine moving to another country with two suitcases and needing to build your everyday life from scratch: kitchenware, bedding, a desk lamp, and a winter coat. Meanwhile, students leaving the same campus have many of those essentials and a deadline to pass them on or sell them. Handoff connects these two moments. We focused on international students because preparing a semester involves more than finding an affordable item: it also means finding something you can actually collect when you arrive in the least amount and travelling the shortest distances possible to claim your item

What it does

Handoff is a student-to-student marketplace organized around the semester transition, starting with the University of Central Missouri. Departing students can post individual items with photos, prices, conditions, and pickup windows. They can also create move-in bundles with dates for a pickup window containing several essentials. Incoming students enter their arrival date, select categories, and specify items they need. Handoff shows how well each bundle covers those needs and whether its availability fits their arrival. Students can browse and filter individual listings, contact sellers through private item conversations, and reserve real bundles.

Why Handoff instead of a general marketplace?

A general marketplace, such as facebook marketplae, is an option for finding used items that most of the time are located far away from the buyers. Handoff focuses on a particular transition: one student is leaving while another is preparing to arrive and the purchase/item pickup happens within the area in which the students are located in. Its value comes from combining needs matching, semester pickup windows, and bundles in one flow. An incoming student can evaluate several essentials together before traveling, while a departing student can pass them on as a kit or individually.

How we built it

We built Handoff with Next.js, React, TypeScript, and Tailwind CSS, with server-side APIs, SQL persistence, and deployment on Vercel. The backend supports accounts and sessions, listing ownership, uploaded product photos, private conversations, and bundle reservations. Real bundle claims use an atomic database operation with Neon to prevent two buyers from reserving the same bundle. Matching uses explicit rules based on requested categories and item names. Timing checks compare the arrival date with the pickup window. These results remain understandable to the user; they do not depend on an AI model. We used Codex and Claude-code to assist development and worked through GitHub branches and pull requests.

Challenges we ran into

One important challenge was making persistence work with Vercel’s deployment environment instead of relying on a local database file. Another was applying a consistent design across the entire experience, including account screens, publishing, messages, bundles, and verification states. We also needed to distinguish demonstrations from real inventory. Sample bundles are labeled as demos, and their reservations do not arrange a real pickup. We also found difficulties in implementing an account verification system in which we would only allow accounts ending in .edu to sign up. We also found challenging to create a feature that could distinguish Handoff from a competitor or similar existing product such as facebook market place.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We built a connected experience that supports both sides of the semester handoff: publishing essentials, discovering compatible offers, communicating, and reserving bundles. We also delivered a responsive visual identity across the application, with real product photos, clear availability information, and an interactive arriving/leaving scene. We were able to find a way to show the difference between handoff and other competitor marketplaces by emphasizing on student needs and realistic transportation, financial, and other constrains that both icoming and departing students may have.

What we learned

The usefulness of a student marketplace depends on context as well as inventory. A bundle can cover someone's needs but still be unsuitable if its pickup window ends before they arrive. We also learned that clear product boundaries matter: matching is a recommendation, a reservation is a separate action, and estimated new prices should be presented as estimates.

What's next for Handoff

Our next step is to test the experience with incoming and departing students at UCM and learn where coordination breaks down. Future improvements include structured pickup agreements, reminders around departure dates, configure the account verification system for .edu users, and support for additional universities. Our goal is to help useful essentials move from one semester to the next.