Recess

Recess helps students prevent burnout with smart breaks and campus zones. See who’s free, meet new people, and take mindful breaks together, bringing back the idea of recess for people of all ages.

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Inspiration

We kept seeing classmates burn out from nonstop studying and feeling isolated. It felt like everyone was grinding all day with nothing to look forward to. We wanted to bring back the idea of recess from middle school, that one part of the day you could count on to reset, breathe, and just be human. Recess is built around that same concept, but designed for college life where wellbeing and social connection go hand in hand.

What it does

Recess helps students prevent burnout with smart break scheduling, campus zones, and a friends system. You add your schedule, get burnout risk insights powered by AI, and see suggested recovery breaks. You can start a live break, choose a zone on campus, and see who else is there so it is easy to meet new people and take mindful breaks together. Points and leaderboards add a bit of fun and accountability, encouraging students to stay active, social, and balanced throughout the week.

How we built it

We used React Native (Expo) for the app and Supabase for auth, database, storage, and realtime presence. Grok AI powers the personalized burnout explanations. We used react-native-maps for the campus map and zone-based presence so users can see where others are on break without compromising privacy.

Challenges we ran into

Balancing realtime presence with privacy (who can see what), designing the schema for one-off vs recurring schedule blocks, and keeping the map performant with live counts per zone. We also had to tune the burnout engine so it felt helpful without being overwhelming.

What we learned

Building realtime, social features (friends, invitations, zone activity) on Supabase meant a lot of work on RLS and subscriptions. We learned a lot about structuring an Expo app for auth, theming, and notifications.

What's next

We’d like to add more campuses, calendar integrations, and richer break suggestions. We also want to make the social side stronger so meeting new people on campus feels even easier and safer.

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