Tapestry

profile making page
tag-based matching page
teach and learn page
messaging
contacts page
profile page
light mode option

Tapestry

Weaving interests together.

Inspiration

We were inspired by the difficulty of finding people with common hobbies, language and culture nearby. Existing social apps optimize for either dating or professional networking. Nobody was building for "I just want to find someone nearby who's from where I'm from, or who wants to swap a skill over coffee." As such, we built a platform to find people online and meet in person. We aim to use this technology to allow people to find those who have common interests, share their own culture, trade skills, and make real connections.

What it does

Tapestry is an anonymous, hyper-local platform for meeting people who share your interests, culture, and language — and for trading informal skills with each other.

Anonymous profiles: no real names, just a username and a rough neighborhood, not an exact address
Matching by tags: every match shows exactly why you were paired: which tags overlapped, weighted by how much they matter
*Teach & Learn board: say what you can teach and what you want to learn; the app only surfaces people where there's an actual trade to be made, not just generic interest overlap
Shout out something you miss: post something specific you miss and get matched to someone who can actually fill that gap, not just anyone with a similar hobby tag
Make real connections: send a request, they accept, you get a private live chat and a nickname only you can see, and you can suggest an actual meetup with a place, date, and time
A contacts list everyone you've ever reached out to, in one place, so reconnecting doesn't mean re-finding them

How we built it

React + Vite for the front end, **Tailwind CSS **for styling
Supabase for the backend: Postgres database, Row Level Security policies controlling exactly who can read/write what, anonymous auth (so every device gets a private identity with zero login friction), and Realtime so chat messages, connection requests, and meetup suggestions all appear live with no refresh

Challenges we ran into

For most of us, it is our first hackathon. Not many of us are familiar with software development or collaboration tools. This was a challenging experience for everyone to learn Git and AI-assisted development. We were able to finish and deliver Tapestry by focusing on building ideas, testing, and prioritizing a smooth experience.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Despite the challenges we faced, we are proud of successfully deploying and submitting this project for this hackathon. Throughout the process, we've polished our teamwork, collaboration, and gotten closer as a group.

What we learned

It was a chance for us to gain our first practical experience in building software. We were able to improve our knowledge and skills in Git and AI-assisted development. Towards the end, we were focused on navigating disagreements as we film the demo video and create presentation slides.

What's next for Tapestry

A safety and reporting layer before any real deployment, push notifications for new messages, and expanding the Teach & Learn matching to understand skills more flexibly than keyword overlap.