UMD EVENT FINDER

Inspiration I remember those Friday nights sitting in my dorm room, scrolling aimlessly through my phone, knowing there had to be something happening on campus but having no idea where to look. Everyone else seemed plugged into some secret network of events while I sat there bored and disconnected. Information was scattered across dozens of platforms, group chats, and outdated bulletin boards. We decided to build the solution ourselves: a single platform where every campus event lives. What it does UMD Event Finder centralizes all campus events into one searchable platform. Students can discover events by category, date, and location, get personalized recommendations based on their interests, and RSVP with automatic reminders. Organizations can post events, manage attendance, and reach their target audience effectively. How we built it We used Claude Challenges we ran into Our biggest challenge was properly prompting Claude for code assistance. Early on, our vague requests produced generic responses. We learned to be specific, provide context with relevant code snippets and error messages, and ask iteratively. This forced us to think more clearly about our own architecture and requirements. Accomplishments that we're proud of We built a security-first application from day one, implementing proper authentication, input validation, and role-based access control instead of retrofitting them later. We also achieved a collaborative flow we called "vibe coding"—working spontaneously together rather than in isolation, creating something truly cohesive. What we learned We learned to prioritize security in every feature decision, not just as an afterthought. We discovered the power of collaborative coding where team members build on each other's ideas in real-time. Most importantly, we learned that effective AI prompting requires clear thinking about your own code—improving our development process overall. What's next for UMD EVENT FINDER We plan to integrate with university calendar systems for automated event imports, add social features so friends can coordinate attendance together, and implement machine learning to improve recommendation accuracy. We're also exploring partnerships with campus organizations to increase adoption and ensure no student ever sits bored on a Friday night again.

Built With

• react
• vite