Project Pulse

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  assets

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  Dashboard

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  Accountability

Inspiration

The daily reality for millions of university students is the "free-rider" problem and last-minute scrambling due to fragmented communication and a lack of accountability in group projects. We were inspired to create a minimalist, high-value tool to restore fairness and clarity to academic collaboration.

What it does

Project Pulse is a single-project dashboard that solves the Accountability Gap. It ensures every member contributes by providing: 1. Accountability Clock (visual proof of contribution), 2. Micro-Task Boards (Kanban for ultra-small tasks), and 3. Shared Asset Bucket (centralized file access).

How we built it

We built the front-end using Next.js and Tailwind CSS for a fast, minimalist interface. The back-end relies on a FastAPI/Node.js architecture to manage task state and user logs. MongoDB/PostgreSQL is used for data storage. You can try the live prototype here: Project Pulse Prototype.

Challenges we ran into

The main challenge was maintaining the strict minimalist scope. We resisted the temptation to add "professional" features to ensure the tool remains simple and fast for students.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud of the Accountability Clock concept, which directly combats the universally hated "free-rider" problem with a verifiable, non-confrontational metric.

What we learned

We learned that in high-friction environments, a highly minimalist design that focuses on one single outcome (accountability) is often more valuable than a feature-rich platform.

What's next for Project Pulse

Next steps include a dedicated "Instructor View" (read-only project analytics) and an export function for Contribution Reports. We aim to integrate directly with major LMS platforms.

Built With

• base
• fastapi
• lms
• mongodb
• nextjs
• node.js
• tailwind