SandCastle

Inspiration

The idea came from a familiar but rarely discussed moment in undergraduate life: realizing that curiosity, doubt, and uncertainty don’t fit cleanly anywhere.

Students are encouraged to “explore,” but the spaces available for exploration are misaligned. LinkedIn rewards confidence and polish. Reddit allows anonymity but lacks context and seriousness for high-stakes academic or career questions. Academic advisors are helpful, but often reached only after a decision already feels urgent.

We noticed that many undergraduates weren’t looking for answers — they were looking for a low-risk way to think out loud, without committing to a path or risking academic, social, or emotional fallout.

What the Project Does

Our project is a campus-specific idea exploration platform that allows students to anonymously test ideas, questions, and uncertainties before committing to decisions that affect their GPA, career trajectory, or identity.

Instead of public replies or threaded discussion, students receive structured community signals through a small, fixed set of reactions: Encouraging, Caution, Mixed/Depends, and Open to DM. These reactions are aggregated and contextualized by experience — not identity — allowing users to see patterns rather than opinions.

The platform supports two levels of exploration:

Sandcastle Mode for early, low-stakes curiosity

Stress Test Mode for higher-stakes questions that require deeper reflection

All exploration is ephemeral by design, reinforcing that curiosity does not need to become commitment.

Why This Problem Matters

Undergraduate uncertainty is often interpreted as failure or lack of fit. Without safe spaces to reflect, students may escalate too quickly — switching majors impulsively, overloading their schedules, or abandoning interests prematurely.

This project reframes uncertainty as information rather than diagnosis. It helps students distinguish between:

feelings that are common and temporary

signals that warrant deeper consideration

That distinction is rarely supported by existing platforms.

How We Built It

We designed the product as a mobile-first, university-restricted experience, verified through institutional email to preserve trust and relevance.

Core features include:

Anonymous question posting

Fixed, non-performative reactions instead of comments

AI-generated reflection prompts that encourage metacognition

Pattern summaries for previously explored questions

Opt-in private DMs with accountable responders

AI is used intentionally and conservatively — not to give advice, but to:

classify questions into exploration or stress-testing

cluster similar questions

surface aggregate response patterns

prompt reflection at key moments

No individual responses are publicly visible or algorithmically ranked.

What We Learned

We learned that removing public replies changes how people engage. Without visibility or performance incentives, responses become quieter but more thoughtful.

We also learned that students value:

anonymity without chaos

feedback without judgment

exploration without obligation

Designing for restraint — rather than engagement maximization — became a guiding principle.

Challenges We Faced

The biggest challenge was balancing anonymity with accountability. We wanted to protect vulnerable questioners without creating an unstructured or unserious space.

Another challenge was resisting familiar social patterns. Many standard features (threads, upvotes, follower graphs) were intentionally excluded, even though they would have been easier to implement.

We also had to carefully scope AI’s role, ensuring it supported reflection without replacing human judgment.