PASSAGE — Room for everyone

Inspiration

During school-event setup, a plan can show where tables belong without answering a practical question: can someone get from the entrance to the help desk, exhibits, or a quiet seat through the temporary layout? PASSAGE makes that question visible while volunteers can still move things. The school fair in the prototype is an invented scenario, not a documented accessibility incident or user study.

What it does

PASSAGE starts with a simple room plan, an entrance, furniture, and named destinations. A volunteer selects a circular clearance envelope and sees which destinations have a modeled route. In the sample fair, a long welcome table leaves only one of three destinations reachable. Move it downward and the route checker finds paths to all three. The plan shows the route; the optional 3D room view explains the same layout. Users can model room dimensions, edit items and destinations, import or export JSON, and print a setup sheet.

How I built it

I built the prototype with React, Vite, JavaScript, Three.js and React Three Fiber. The route engine is a separate deterministic module: it represents furniture as rectangles, checks a chosen circular envelope against objects and walls, searches a 10 cm grid, then validates segments before drawing the line. The three sample rooms and illustrations are authored for this project. Data stays in the browser's local storage. There is no backend or runtime AI.

What I learned / limits

The useful moment is not the 3D room by itself. It is the change from a blocked destination to a visible route when one table moves. The model is deliberately limited: it does not include door swings, slopes, people, queues, wheelchair turning or access standards. A route found here is a planning prompt, not an accessibility certification or evacuation plan. I have not conducted a user study or validated real-world impact. I would next test the setup workflow with student volunteers and people with different access needs, then revise the geometry and terminology with their feedback.

Existing solutions and originality

Cvent Event Diagramming already provides 3D event layouts and accessibility considerations. PASSAGE explores a narrower, lower-friction workflow for temporary school-event furniture, with destination-by-destination reachability and an immediate obstruction test. I do not claim to have invented accessible event planning. Prior art: https://www.cvent.com/en/event-marketing-management/accessibility .

Sources and AI disclosure

Codex (OpenAI's GPT-based assistant) assisted with concept research, code, copy, design and verification. No AI model runs in the product. Sources and licenses are in ATTRIBUTION.md; limitations are in LIMITATIONS.md. Hackathon and winner research is documented in PRACTICE-TO-CREATE-RESEARCH.md.

Built With

• css
• gsap
• html
• javascript
• react
• react-three-fiber
• three.js
• vite