VibeTrack

Inspiration Watching professors manually take attendance with pen and paper every class was frustrating - wasting lecture time and causing grading disputes. When the hackathon began, we knew exactly what to build. We had 5 hours to revolutionize university attendance.

What it does VibeTrack uses rotating QR codes that refresh every 30 seconds for secure attendance tracking. Professors display the code, students scan with their phones, and attendance is instantly recorded as on-time, late, or absent. The system integrates with university SSO and exports data to CSV/Excel.

How we built it We used React/Next.js for frontend, Supabase for backend, and Tailwind CSS for rapid styling. Our team of 5 divided tasks strategically: 2 on frontend, 1 on QR logic, 1 on backend, 1 on testing. The 5-hour deadline forced quick decisions and smart use of pre-built components.

Challenges we ran into Implementing 30-second QR rotation with frontend-backend sync consumed 2 hours. Our QR scanning library failed on mobile with just 90 minutes left, forcing an emergency pivot. Database migrations and fraud prevention had to be debugged simultaneously in the final 30 minutes.

Accomplishments that we're proud of We built a fully functional attendance system in just 5 hours with zero demo crashes! The rotating QR codes with fraud prevention worked perfectly. Our live demo successfully tracked 15 people's attendance in real-time.

What we learned Perfect is the enemy of done - we chose working features over ideal implementation. We discovered how to implement real-time features with Supabase in minutes. Extreme time pressure taught us to make decisions in seconds, not hours.

What's next for VibeTrack We'll add machine learning for pattern analysis and location verification. Mobile apps and biometric authentication are planned. Our goal is expansion beyond Furman to universities nationwide.

Built With

• chatgptbolt
• claude