SlugBuild

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  Main Page

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  Project Browsing Page

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  Project Creation Page

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  Profile Page

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  Main Page cont.

Inspiration

I was talking to my friend’s dad one day and he mentioned that UCSC, despite being a strong school, lacks many of the career opportunities that its peer schools have. This reminded me of conversations with friends who felt discouraged from pursuing projects in their field because they couldn’t find like-minded collaborators. I wanted to build something that lowers that barrier and makes it easy for students to connect and build together.

What it does

SlugBuild is a collaboration platform designed for UCSC students to discover projects, find teammates, and bring ideas to life. Users can browse projects, filter by interests or skills, view detailed project pages, and request to join teams. Students can also create their own projects, specify roles they’re looking for, and showcase their skills on their profile. The goal is to make it easy to go from idea → team → execution.

How we built it

The app was built using Next.js with React and TypeScript. The UI was designed with Tailwind CSS and shadcn/ui, with icons from Lucide. Development was accelerated using v0, allowing rapid iteration on a clean, modern interface. The project is designed to be deployed on Vercel and structured for future backend integration.

Challenges we ran into

One of the biggest challenges was translating an idea into a cohesive product within a short time frame. While v0 accelerated UI development, it still required careful iteration to ensure consistency across pages and components. Another challenge was designing an intuitive user flow—making sure actions like discovering projects, creating listings, and joining teams felt natural and frictionless. Balancing speed with polish was also a constant tradeoff during the hackathon.

Accomplishments that we're proud of Built a fully functional, polished frontend with multiple pages and reusable components Created a cohesive design system inspired by UCSC’s Banana Slug identity Designed a clear and intuitive user experience for collaboration Developed a strong foundation that can easily be extended into a full product What we learned

We learned how to use v0 to rapidly prototype and iterate on a real product idea. We also gained experience structuring a scalable frontend using modern tools like Next.js and Tailwind, and learned the importance of prioritizing core features and user experience under time constraints.

What's next for SlugBuild

Next, I plan to turn SlugBuild into a fully functional platform by integrating a backend with authentication and real-time data. This includes adding user accounts, enabling real project creation and join requests, and implementing smarter project recommendations. I also want to incorporate AI-powered features (such as generating project ideas or suggesting team roles) and expand beyond UCSC to support broader student communities.

Built With

• lucide
• react
• typescript
• v0
• vercel