TartanTime

Inspiration

As Tartans, our mantra is to put our hearts into the work. But passion isn’t enough fuel to prevent burnout. With the impromptu barrages of academic tasks, surprise quizzes, and last-minute projects, even the most organized students would find themselves spending more time replanning their work than actually doing it, while the less organized students could experience burnout faster. So the urge to keep our passionate hearts in the work without burning out has inspired us to build Tartan Time, an adaptive planning platform designed for the smooth sailing through the chaos of academic life.

What it does

Tartan Time is an AI-powered scheduling assistant built for the dynamic life of a Tartan. It isn’t just a simple calendar, but a reliable assistant that allows the user to rank all their tasks from critical deadlines to exercising and social events by priority while learning the user's activity pattern and creating a more customized schedule. One of the most useful features is its ability to instantly reschedule your activities when impromptu activities come up. With a single input, Tartan time can automatically accommodate surprise quizzes or short-notice projects as they arise, finding the optimal new timeslots for the user’s task. Easily making the user the most time-efficient version of themselves.

How we built it

For the first version of TartanTime, the frontend is built using React for interactive components, Typescript for type-safety and Tailwind CSS for styling the application. We also use Vite as the build tool, and implemented a calendar visualization component for week view. The core component of the app, which is the intelligent schedule generation and adjustment was implemented using Google Gemini 2.5 Flash. We are using schema-based responses to generate a structure JSON output which is then rendered on screen. The application is deployed on Google Cloud run, we also implement code splitting using Vite build for optimization

Challenges we ran into

One of the major challenges we faced while developing was crafting the best prompt for the Gemini API. It took a lot of trials to get the Gemini API to reliably return a structured, logical schedule based on a complex list of tasks and priorities. We had to engineer our prompts to ensure the AI's reasoning for the "Instant Reschedule" feature was both intelligent and consistent.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Our biggest accomplishment is building a functional prototype that directly tackles student burnout. We're proud of creating a tool that empowers students to regain control. With Tartan Time, social events, music lessons, and personal interests don't have to be casualties of an intense academic schedule. We have built a path for students to be both successful and well-rounded.

What we learned

This project taught us to look beyond the obvious problem and focus on the deeper user psychology.

Firtsly, we learned that _ It's About Managing Anxiety, Not Just Time_. We learned the real problem isn't a cluttered calendar; it's the constant, low-level anxiety of knowing that any new event could shatter a carefully made plan. Our focus shifted from just organizing tasks to providing a sense of control and a "safety net" that calms this specific anxiety.

Secondly, we discovered that the most powerful features are often the ones that solve an emotional problem instantly. The "Instant Reschedule" button became the heart of our project. We learned that providing a one-click solution to a complex, stressful situation is an incredibly effective way to build a product that users will love.

Finally, we learned that an AI-powered tool is only useful if people trust its suggestions. This meant designing an interface where the AI's logic was transparent and its suggestions were easily adjustable. We realized that for personal tasks like scheduling, the user must always feel like they are in the driver's seat, even when the AI is navigating.

What's next for TartanTime

Calendar Integration: We plan to integrate with Google Calendar, allowing users to import their existing calendar events directly into the app. This two-way synchronization ensures that any events created in Google Calendar automatically appear in TartanTime, and any schedules generated by TartanTime are instantly reflected in the user's Google Calendar.

Live AI Chat: Next, we plan to implement a live chat interface that enables real-time conversation with TartanTime. Users can naturally describe their scheduling needs like "I couldn't finish reading chapter 5 of Cloud Infrastructure, can you rearrange my study sessions?" and the AI will instantly regenerate their schedule and update both the app and their Google Calendar.

Premium Focus Sessions: Next we plan to integrate a flagship premium feature which is an AI-powered Focus Sessions with real-time coaching. When a student blocks off time for studying or working on an assignment, they can activate a Focus Session through TartanTime Premium. During this session, the AI becomes an active study companion that provides periodic check-ins, motivational messages, and adaptive difficulty coaching.