Resi: Voice-Enabled Maintenance Assistant for UMass

💡 Inspiration

UMass students told us dorm maintenance felt outdated — paper forms, phone calls, and emails that disappeared into the void. We built a faster, familiar way to report issues using just your voice.

💬 What It Does

Resi is a voice-driven maintenance and residential life assistant. Students describe an issue on web, iOS, or Android; Resi transcribes it, classifies it, and creates a structured ticket. It routes tasks to Maintenance or RAs, assigns queue positions, and keeps everyone updated through a live dashboard.

🧩 How We Built It

Client: Expo / React Native app (web, iOS, Android) with role-based navigation and voice recording with live feedback.
Backend: Node.js + Express on Render
- OpenAI Whisper for transcription
- GPT-4-Turbo for ticket classification and conversational logic
- Real-time queue assignment and backfilling every 5s
- Firebase Admin SDK for DB operations and ticket persistence
Data & Auth: Firebase Realtime Database and UMass-restricted Firebase Authentication
AI Layer: Context-aware conversation system that asks clarifying questions before creating tickets.

⚙️ Challenges

Cross-device backend detection (localhost vs production)
Preventing duplicate ticket creation
Real-time queue synchronization
Maintaining conversation context across sessions
iOS audio playback with deprecated Expo AV APIs
Deployment caching across Docker, Expo, and Cloudflare

🏆 Accomplishments

Submit a maintenance request in < 1 minute using only voice
AI-driven conversation flow with natural text-to-speech replies
Shared RA/Maintenance dashboard with real-time updates
Auto queue management syncing every 5 seconds
Smart routing between Maintenance and RAs

📚 What We Learned

Students prefer interfaces that feel like voice notes, not forms
Context management defines perceived “intelligence”
Fine-grained logging is vital for multi-API systems
Mobile development requires dynamic networking configs
Server-side queue logic is more reliable than client-side syncing

🚀 What’s Next

Push notifications for ticket updates
Image upload for issue reports
Integration with existing systems (FMX, SchoolDude)
Analytics dashboard for recurring issues
Multi-language support
Offline ticket caching
Smart SLA-based escalation

🧠 Key Technical Highlights

🎙️ OpenAI Whisper transcription
🤖 GPT-4-Turbo conversational AI with memory
🔊 Text-to-speech replies
📱 Cross-platform Expo app
⚡ Real-time Firebase data sync
🎯 Automated queue routing
🚀 Deployed on Render with CI/CD
🔐 Role-based Firebase Authentication