StudyBuddy

Inspiration

We often struggle to find reliable study partners or organize group sessions. Posting in Discord servers or group chats is chaotic, and studying alone can be isolating, which is why we wanted something fast, intuitive, and social! Something which makes forming study groups as easy as swiping on Hinge. This idea is what became StudyBuddy, a platform which turns academic collaboration into a fun and frictionless experience.

What it does

StudyBuddy is a swipe-based matching app that helps students instantly find compatible study partners. When two users match, they can:

Chat directly in the app
Pick a study spot
Choose a time
Create and join public or private study sessions
Invite matched partners to collaborate

It’s a streamlined way for students to connect, coordinate, and study together.

How we built it

We built StudyBuddy using:

React + Vite for our frontend
Supabase for authentication, profile storage, real-time messaging, and database operations

Challenges we ran into

Designing the swipe system so that liked/passed profiles never reappear required multiple iterations of database queries and cache management.
Building real-time chat and ensuring messages load instantly for both users.
Coordinating multiple team members working in parallel branches, dealing with merge conflicts, and maintaining a consistent component structure.
Structuring the sessions system, epecially private invites and participant management, while keeping the UI simple.
Ensuring authentication, profile data, and session data flowed smoothly without breaking the existing UI.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Fully implemented swipe-based matchmaking with persistent matches.
Built functional chat with real-time messaging.
Designed a robust session scheduling feature with public/private modes, invitations, and capacity limits.
Created a cohesive, polished UI in just two days despite time pressure.
Achieved a real end-to-end user experience: sign up → create profile → swipe → match → chat → schedule a study session.

What we learned

How to integrate Supabase authentication, database tables, and real-time features under tight deadlines.
How to structure a project so multiple developers can work simultaneously without breaking each other’s work.
Techniques for building matching systems, chat systems, and user profiles in a scalable, secure way.
The importance of clean schema design and front-end state synchronization.
How to turn a simple idea into a complete, functional prototype quickly.