Inspiration
We built RU-stable because, as students, we were tired of juggling meal plans, dining dollars, campus cards, and bank apps just to figure out where our money was going. There was no single place that understood “campus life” spending, so we wanted to create a simple, student-focused tool that turns scattered transactions into a clear, visual story, thereby helping students feel more in control of their finances and daily routines.
What it does
RU-stable gives students one place to see and manage all their campus spending. It pulls together meal swipes, dining dollars, campus card payments, and off-campus purchases into a single dashboard where you can view your balances, browse recent transactions, and see charts of where your money is going by category (like Dining, Books, or Transport). The app helps you quickly answer questions like “How much have I spent this week?” or “How many meal swipes do I have left?” so you can make smarter day-to-day decisions without digging through multiple apps or portals.
How we built it
We built RU-stable with a simple, full-stack architecture focused on speed and clarity. On the backend, we used Node.js with Express to create REST API endpoints and stored data in a lightweight JSON-based file system instead of a heavy database, which made prototyping and deployment easier. On the frontend, we used vanilla HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, along with Chart.js to generate clean spending visualizations and wallet summaries. The frontend pulls real-like campus transaction data from our API and turns it into interactive charts, tables, and balance displays tailored to student life.
Challenges we ran into
One of our biggest challenges was cleanly merging the backend and frontend so everything felt seamless to the user. We had to carefully structure our REST endpoints, data formats, and fetch logic to make sure the dashboard loaded quickly and updated correctly without glitches. Tuning how often we pulled data, how we handled state in vanilla JavaScript, and how we rendered charts and tables was a constant balancing act between performance and simplicity, so it pretty much pushed us to write more efficient code.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
Our biggest accomplishment was simply getting the entire site to work end-to-end (frontend, backend, and data all talking to each other smoothly). Seeing real-like campus transactions flow through our API, render on the dashboard, and power live charts felt huge. For a stack we stitched together ourselves under time pressure, having a functional, responsive, and student-friendly web app running was something we were genuinely proud of.
What we learned
We learned how to fully integrate a frontend with a backend so that data flows smoothly and everything feels seamless to the user. From designing REST endpoints to handling responses in vanilla JavaScript, we gained a much deeper understanding of how to connect both sides of a web app into one cohesive experience.
What's next for RUstable
Long term, we’d love to integrate with real campus or banking systems so students can use RU-stable with live data at Rutgers and eventually other universities.
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