Inspiration Building an app that bridges the gap between neurodivergency and nuerotypical apps.
What it does Major Spark is a step-by-step career guide for Miami Dade College. A student picks a path and sees the classes, campus, and next step in plain language. The same page works for neurodivergent and neurotypical students: shorter steps, a clearer font, larger type, or read-aloud. Nothing is hidden in a separate “accessibility mode.”
How we built it We built a React app with TanStack Start, Vite, and Tailwind, and deployed it on Vercel. The home screen is a simple Enter page. Inside, the path is local and does not require an account. Read-aloud calls ElevenLabs through a server route, so the API key never sits in the browser. If speech fails, the page shows a clear error instead of crashing.
Challenges we ran into One layout had to help different kinds of minds without feeling like two apps. Server routing on Vercel kept returning errors when a page expected a login service that was not there. We removed that gate so students can open the guide immediately. Speech was the other hard part: a missing key or an empty account had to return a readable message, not a 500 error.
Accomplishments that we're proud of I'm proud of getting a complete and polished app in 36 hours. My very first app.
What we learned I learned of other tools I could use for my other builds in the future.
What's next for Major Sparks It all depends on how it goes today if I take it further.
