Spartan Finder

Spartan Finder was built to help MSU students connect with each other, meet new people, and form real friendships around shared interests and experiences. We noticed that many students want to explore campus, try new places, and make friends, but don’t always have an easy or natural way to do that outside of existing social circles. Spartan Finder allows students to create profiles, discover other students, review and share campus spots together, and message each other to plan meetups in a low-pressure, organic way. We built the platform as a full-stack web application using React and TypeScript on the frontend with Tailwind CSS for a clean, approachable interface, and Supabase on the backend for authentication, real-time messaging, and data storage using PostgreSQL. One of the main challenges was designing social features that felt comfortable rather than forced, while also scoping the project realistically for a hackathon environment. We’re proud of creating a working, student-centered platform focused on genuine connection instead of networking or formality, and we learned how important thoughtful design and empathy are when building social technology. Moving forward, we hope to expand Spartan Finder with group meetups, richer place-based experiences, and additional safety and moderation features to help MSU feel more connected and welcoming.

Built With

• css
• javascript
• postgresql
• react
• tailwind
• typescript
• vercel