Inspiration
Students already trade time, skills, and stuff—but discovery and trust are messy.
Club events and tutoring offers get lost across chats, flyers, and DMs.
We wanted a simple, safe, .edu-verified hub to connect students and faculty in minutes, not weeks.
What it does
edu One-Click Sign-In: Only a campus email unlocks “College Zone.”
Marketplace of Services: List gigs (tutoring, design, delivery, events) with price and category; public can browse.
Instant Collaboration Chat: Real-time room with presence and typing indicators.
Role-aware UI: Admin panel hidden from non-admins; students can publish and manage their own listings.
Bookings: One-tap booking creates a timestamped record.
How we built it
🎓 AI-verified .edu Access — Secure onboarding for campus users.
🤖 Gemini-powered Match Agent — Suggests relevant services (e.g., tutoring, delivery, event help).
💬 Collaboration Agent — Handles chat moderation and auto-summaries.
⚡ Serverless Deployment on Cloud Run — Scales instantly per request.
🗄️ Firestore Integration — Stores user data, services, and chat history securely.
🔗 Cloud Storage & Pub/Sub Hooks — Ready for async image and data pipelines.
Challenges we ran into
Environment wrangling: Python versions, venvs, and dependency glitches (bcrypt, jose) on macOS.
Auth flows: Making .edu verification feel “one click” while preserving JWT security.
WebSocket edge cases: Keeping typing/presence accurate with connect/disconnect churn.
CORS and ports: Smooth local testing for both API (5050) and static UI (8082).Integrating ADK multi-agent flow seamlessly into FastAPI architecture.
Managing WebSockets in Cloud Run without persistent connections (solved via Pub/Sub + WebSocket Gateway).
Authentication consistency between agents and JWT tokens.
Cold-start latency optimization for small student-scale requests.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
A fully working MVP you can run in under 2 minutes.
Clean UI that’s public-browsable but gates publishing to .edu users.
RFully serverless dual-agent platform that auto-matches and moderates user interactions.
Real-time collaboration with AI-driven suggestions powered by Gemini.
Deployed to Cloud Run in under 5 minutes using a single build command.
Seamless .edu verification workflow and production-ready design.
What we learned
Keep the stack boringly reliable for hackathons; avoid heavy front-end builds when not needed.
JWT + WebSockets + SQLModel is a sweet spot for speed and clarity. Fully serverless dual-agent platform that auto-matches and moderates user interactions.
Real-time collaboration with AI-driven suggestions powered by Gemini.
Deployed to Cloud Run in under 5 minutes using a single build command.
Seamless .edu verification workflow and production-ready design.
What's next for OnTap SPU-AI Powered Campus Marketplace & Collaboration Hub
Ratings & Reviews and moderation queue for services.
Stripe/Pay test mode for escrow-like booking.
Org spaces (departments/clubs) and event RSVPs.
Mobile app (Expo RN) pointing to the same API.
Multi-university rollout with domain-based tenanting.We built OnTap SPU to make campus micro-economies visible and safe. With a .edu sign-in, any student can publish services—tutoring, design, delivery, event support—instantly visible to the public. A real-time chat channel enables quick Q&A and coordination with presence and typing signals. Under the hood, a tiny but robust stack (FastAPI + SQLModel + WebSockets) keeps complexity down and iteration fast. Our biggest wins were: a truly two-minute demo setup, minimal UI friction, and a feature set that maps directly to student needs.
We also explored lightweight heuristics for trust (e.g., verified domain, owner-only deletes, future ratings). In future sprints, we’ll add moderation, payment flows, and per-university tenanting to go from MVP to multi-campus network.
(Optional math formatting example: the booking price summary
𝑇
∑ 𝑖 𝑝 𝑖 T=∑ i
p i
can apply dynamic discounts; we chose fixed prices for demo clarity.)
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