Shoal

Inspiration

As a team of individuals who study best in groups, we’ve always been familiar with the struggle of trying to find new friends to study with. Somehow in this world of social networks, it is unbelievably difficult to do something as simple as finding people to go to the library with.

Although students are extremely tech savvy, the obsolescence of the ‘just make friends’ method, and the embarrassment of telling 400 other people in a Facebook group that you need help with math has left a lot of students, like us, in a very awkward situation.

We discussed amongst ourselves long before this hackathon how amazing it would be if there was a tool that matched students with new study partners. It didn’t take long before it clicked - we knew that it was our job to turn this idea into a reality, and we did.

What it does

Shoal offers a clean and simple way to discuss your classes, share notes, and form study groups. Students can easily join discussions within each of their university courses to discuss homework, assignments, and exams. Students can also form private or public study groups using Shoal’s built in study group finder.

How we built it

Shoal was built from the ground up using the robust MEAN stack, along with Socket.io (plus lots of caffeine). Having toyed with this idea using a different technology stack at a prior hackathon, we knew what ideas and features were required, and what had to change. This allowed us to create the perfect study tool for students.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We’re really proud to include a flexible study group finding tool with Shoal. Given a desired course and topic, Shoal will find other students interested in forming a study group using advanced compatibility algorithms.

What's next for Shoal

We’d love to add a more robust file-sharing system with support for real-time collaboration through Google Docs. This would allow students to keep up-to-date master notes for each of their courses.