MUCPulse

Inspiration

Cities are mapped by streets and infrastructure, but not by how they feel. We realised there is no way to understand the emotional reality of urban spaces — whether a park feels safe, a street feels stressful, or a plaza feels welcoming.

MUCPulse was created to make the invisible visible: a living map of Munich's emotional landscape, powered by its people.

What it does

MUCPulse is a real-time emotional intelligence platform where citizens can submit how they feel at specific locations and instantly see it reflected on a live heatmap of the city.

Users can:

Drop a pin and tag an emotion
Explore emotional trends across time and categories
Understand how Munich's mood shifts throughout the day

It transforms subjective feelings into actionable, city-scale insight.

How we built it

We used a modern, open-source architecture for speed, scalability, and sustainability:

Frontend: React + Vite + Tailwind CSS
Mapping: MapLibre GL with custom heatmap rendering
Backend: FastAPI (Python) for async signal processing
Database: PostgreSQL for geospatial and temporal data
Geolocation Logic: Custom boundaries to focus on Greater Munich

This ensured a fast, privacy-friendly, and future-proof platform.

Challenges we ran into

Ghost Map Bug: React 18 re-renders collapsed our map container — solved with strict ref validation and layout containment.
Privacy vs Precision: Handling location permissions required clear UX flows to maintain trust without breaking usability.
Data Serialization: Bridging snake_case backend models with camelCase frontend required a custom adapter layer.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Built a fully open-source, zero-cost mapping architecture
Achieved real-time visual updates across devices
Created a focused, Munich-bound emotional intelligence system
Delivered a polished, intuitive user experience within hackathon time constraints