hotspot

Inspiration

Today, it's a given that people are constantly on their phones, yet meaningful real-world connections feel harder to make than ever. Instead of fighting this shift, we wanted to embrace it—using technology not to isolate, but to bring people together in the places they already are. Social media connects us globally, but what about locally, in the moment? That’s where hotspot comes in. Inspired by the idea of turning real-world locations into instant digital communities, we built an app that bridges the gap between the physical and digital—helping people spark conversations, meet new faces, and experience the world together.

What it does

hotspot allows users to create and vote for hotspots live. Once a hotspot gets popular enough, it will become active and show up on the map, allowing users to join that hotspot and chat together. By doing this, users can connect with like-minded individuals with a click of a button.

How we built it

We followed an agile development approach, starting with a structured planning session where we defined the app’s schemas and architecture. From there, we strategically divided tasks based on team members' expertise, using a ticket-based system to manage development efficiently. This allowed different team members to focus on specific features, ensuring a collaborative, parallel workflow that kept development both organized and adaptable.

Challenges we ran into

While working on our project, we had some issues dealing with database concurrency due to multiple users interacting with the same document at the same time.

How we used AI

To create our project, we limited our use of generative AI for general debugging to save time.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

In the last hour, we were able to deploy a working application that can be used by anyone! Check out the QR code above.

What we learned

By successfully completing this project, our team refined our full-stack development capabilities, gaining valuable experience with database interactions and organization.