Inspiration
College can be overwhelming. Between dense syllabi, long lists of topics, overlapping deadlines, and already busy schedules, studying often becomes disorganized and stressful. It’s hard to know where to start, what to prioritize, and how to consistently make time. Nexus was inspired by the idea that studying shouldn’t feel chaotic. With just a simple syllabus upload, Nexus turns confusion into a clear, personalized plan.
What it does
Nexus is an all-in-one AI-powered study platform that transforms a syllabus into an actionable learning system.
- Syllabus parsing: Upload or paste your syllabus, and Nexus extracts weeks, topics, deadlines, and exams.
- Personalized study plans: Nexus generates a structured study schedule tailored to your workload and preferences.
- Calendar integration: The study plan syncs directly with Google Calendar, scheduling study sessions at times that work for you.
- Automatic resource discovery: Nexus finds relevant study materials (videos, guides, and references) for each topic and links them directly in your schedule and resources tab.
- Active recall tools: Generate short-answer practice quizzes (not just multiple choice) to reinforce learning and test understanding.
- Mastery tracking: A concept map tracks your progress over time, helping you visualize what you’ve mastered and what needs more attention.
- Centralized resources: All discovered resources are compiled both within your calendar events and in a dedicated topics/resources view.
How we built it
Nexus is a full-stack web application built with a React frontend and a Flask backend. The backend handles syllabus parsing, study plan generation, calendar logic, and API integrations, while the frontend provides an interactive and intuitive user experience. We used SQLite for persistence, integrated external APIs for calendar syncing and resource discovery, and designed agent-based scheduling logic to intelligently place study sessions before topics are taught.
Challenges we ran into
One of the biggest challenges was integrating our AI-generated schedule with Google Calendar. Managing authentication, handling OAuth tokens securely, and ensuring events synced correctly without duplication required careful backend design.
Another major challenge was syllabus parsing—syllabi vary wildly in structure, formatting, and language, making it difficult to reliably extract weeks, topics, and deadlines. We also spent significant time setting up and debugging calendar availability logic to ensure study sessions were placed realistically within a user’s schedule.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
This was our very first hackathon, and we’re proud that we built a complete end-to-end product from scratch. We successfully implemented a full-stack architecture, integrated third-party APIs, designed a non-trivial scheduling algorithm, and delivered a working product with multiple advanced features. Most importantly, we created something genuinely useful for students.
What we learned
Through building Nexus, we learned how to:
- Design and connect frontend and backend systems
- Work with APIs and securely manage API keys
- Implement authentication and handle OAuth tokens
- Debug full-stack applications across multiple services
- Structure databases and persist complex relational data
- Think critically about user experience and real-world constraints like time and availability
What's next for Nexus
Next, we want to expand Nexus into a more interactive learning companion. Future features include a real-time study assistant that quizzes users while they watch videos, the ability to ask questions when concepts aren’t clear, deeper personalization based on learning habits, and smarter mastery-based scheduling. Our goal is to make Nexus not just a planner, but a true AI study partner.
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