StudyBuddyBoard

Title Page
About Us
Buddy Board
Friend List/Chat
Study Buddy Group
Buddy Profile
Group Matches
Chat
Find Buddies
Admin Buddies

Inspiration

It’s hard to find classmates for an upcoming exam. You end up in a huge GroupMe or a random Discord server, and you still don’t know who’s in your class, on your campus, or studying the same way you are. We wanted one place to match with people grinding the same test, then actually show up and stay coordinated.

What it does

StudyBuddyBoard matches students by course, campus, and study style. No messy GroupMe posts or random feeds. Just targeted groups, native chat, and shared goals. Same exam. Same grind. Max efficiency.

You can find exam-prep buddies, browse or host study groups (in-person or online), DM and group-chat with attachments and reactions, and keep upcoming sessions on a Buddy Board dashboard.

How we built it

We built a full-stack web app in Next.js (App Router, React Server Components, Server Actions) with React and Tailwind. Profiles, groups, chat, and matching live in SQLite via Prisma. Auth uses signed HTTP-only session cookies and hashed passwords. File uploads (profile photos, chat attachments) stay on disk. Demo accounts, tailored bios, and PFPs are backed up in git so everybody gets the same world on a fresh clone.

Challenges we ran into

Keeping demo data honest was harder than it sounds — people edited real profiles and photos, and a reset would wipe them unless we snapshot users and commit avatars. Matching had to feel useful (same class, topics, campus, give/get help) without turning into a noisy social feed. Chat, buddy requests, blocks, join requests, and online vs in-person groups all had to stay consistent across pages. Windows vs Mac/Linux setup also bit us (Prisma file locks, copying .env), so we tightened the README for everybody. Transferring the site on a computer/desktop to a phone.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We shipped a complete loop in one weekend: signup, match, join a group, talk, and show up on a calendar. Matching is course-first, not “people you might know.” Groups and chat are native. You don’t bounce to GroupMe. Safety is built in (block, leave, join requests). The demo is actually demoable: 67 accounts, photos, friendships, and chats restore with one command.

What we learned

Scope the product around one job (exam prep with the right people) and cut everything that looks like a social network. Server Actions plus a simple SQLite schema moved faster than a split frontend/backend. Demo data is part of the product — if clones don’t look like the live app, users won’t see the work. Small UX details (filters, unread badges, photo crop, online/in-person) matter more than extra pages.

What's next for StudyBuddyBoard

Branch out to countries outside of the U.S. After that: more campuses, calendar sync, better exam-date reminders, and a hosted production deploy so students can use it without cloning the repo.