MindMatch

Inspiration

We chose the name Adler for our AI, drawing inspiration from Alfred Adler, a psychologist who believed in the power of understanding human behavior and emotional growth. Much like Unshackle, which inspires us with its mission to help people anticipate and prevent issues by fostering a deeper understanding of others' emotions, Adler reflects our core belief in the importance of emotional clarity. This kind of insight is more vital than ever in a generation where hidden emotions are so common.

What it does

To expand the functionality of the current app (Unshackle), we've added a new feature that allows users to choose between a Solo or Dual Session. In a Solo Session, users converse with the AI about their feelings and, upon finishing, receive a personalized summary of their emotional state, strategies to tackle their issues, and a list of real-world resources for ongoing support and prevention. In a dual session, two users converse with the AI separately. Once both complete their sessions, the AI generates a combined summary reflecting each person’s perspective, highlights mutual concerns or emotional gaps, suggests tailored solutions to address them, and provides relevant resources they can explore together or individually. This feature encourages self-awareness and healthier communication, whether individually or in relationships.

How we built it

We began by sitting down to discuss the core objectives of the app and to gain a solid understanding of Unshackle’s original goals. After aligning on the vision, we created a rough sketch of the app’s flow and then divided it into two teams. One person focused on back-end engineering, while another handled the front-end development using Node.js, JavaScript, and HTML. Meanwhile, two team members concentrated on the design, using Figma to build out the website’s wireframes, user interface, and overall visual style. They worked on creating a clean and intuitive layout, selecting an accessible color palette, and designing consistent components to ensure a smooth and engaging user experience.

Challenges we ran into

One of the biggest challenges we faced was integrating AI through GitHub repositories. With only two developers working on it and using a shared API key, we ran into occasional functionality issues. Another challenge was translating the app’s design into code, as the technology available didn’t fully support our vision. Finally, due to time constraints, we couldn’t implement a Firebase database, which meant we had to share user data across multiple devices instead of being able to store it securely for individual users.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Our team was able to decide on a topic pretty quickly and get started without much back and forth, which helped us stay on track from the beginning. We had a clear idea of what we wanted to do, and that made planning a lot smoother. The design and flow of our app turned out really clean and cohesive—it ties everything together and brings our concept to life in a way that makes sense. We’ve been intentional about making sure the features are user-friendly and align with the purpose of the project.

What we learned

We learned how to optimize AI usage and discovered a new UI design space called Figma, which extremely fast-tracked our project.

What's next for MindMatch

Next for MindMatch is making improvements based on user feedback to create a more personalized and comfortable experience. We’re planning to fine-tune the responses, simplify the interface even more, and address any areas where users felt the AI could be more supportive. We’re also looking into adding voice integration to make conversations feel more natural and accessible, especially for users who prefer speaking over typing.