MyCampusRewards

Turning Campus Involvement into Real-World Rewards.

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Inspiration:

As students at the University of Arizona, we noticed that many campus events and club activities often go unnoticed or under-attended—not because of a lack of interest, but because there’s no strong incentive for consistent participation. We wanted to change that. Our idea was to create MyCampusRewards, a centralized platform that recognizes and rewards students for getting involved, making it easier (and more exciting!) to engage with university life.

What it does:

MyCampusRewards is a web app that gamifies campus involvement. Students can log in, view their points, track their participation, and see where they stand on the leaderboard. The platform features:

-A dashboard displaying user info, badge tier, point multiplier, recent activities, and progress milestones

-A badge system (Bronze, Silver, Gold, Diamond) where users can purchase badges that boost their point multipliers

-A leaderboard preview showing the top 5 students, encouraging friendly competition

-A log of recent activities based on club and event attendance

-Easy access to account management features like profile info and password reset

How we built it:

We used a modern full-stack approach:

-Frontend: React with custom css to build a clean, responsive UI

-Backend: Node.js + Express to handle authentication and point/badge logic

-Database: Firebase Firestore to store user profiles, badge levels, and activity logs

-Authentication: Firebase Auth to manage sign-up, login, and account security

-Routing: React Router for smooth navigation between pages (Welcome, Sign Up, Login, Dashboard, etc.)

Challenges we ran into:

-Getting the dropdown menu under “Account” to align properly while keeping navbar spacing and transitions intact

-Ensuring real-time data updates for user info and activity logs without page reloads

-Setting up secure and reliable Firebase rules for accessing user data

-Managing state across different components, especially when switching between login and dashboard views

-Time constraints made us carefully prioritize features and polish

Accomplishments that we're proud of:

-Built a fully functional and visually appealing app in under 24 hours

-Implemented user authentication, badge logic, and activity tracking seamlessly

-Created a dynamic points system that adjusts based on badge tier

-Pulled off a live leaderboard and user-specific dashboard

-Designed with real students in mind—we’d love to see this in action on campus!

What we learned:

-How to integrate Firebase Auth and Firestore efficiently into a full-stack app

-The importance of UI/UX consistency and how small layout bugs can affect the user experience

-How to work as a team and divide tasks (frontend/backend) to move fast without breaking things

-Deeper understanding of React component logic, props, and hooks

-How to think from a user-first perspective while still implementing backend logic

-Integrating an AI Chatbot into a live system

What's next for MyCampusRewards:

We’re excited to continue developing this project! Upcoming features we plan to build:

-Club-based event scanning using QR codes to automatically log attendance

-Reward redemption portal with exclusive campus perks

-Admin portal for clubs and organizers to track participation

-Mobile app version for on-the-go engagement

-Partnering with student clubs and the university to bring this system into real use!

-A heatmap feature that increases the amount of heat signatures at a location depending on the amount of users checking in at that event

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