CS 278 Final Project
Stanford students often face an invisible challenge: studying alone. While group work and social learning are known to boost academic outcomes, the tools for forming academic partnerships are nonexistent. SyncUp is a sociotechnical system designed to fill this gap, helping students find study partners, amass a peer network, and stay accountable through lightweight, intentional connections.
Our target audience is students seeking structure and motivation, particularly around major deadlines like finals or midterms. SyncUp combines a swipe-based discovery model (inspired by Tinder, our piggyback prototype) with features tuned for academic contexts and norms that promote reciprocity.
Overview of SyncUp's key features, including the onboarding/profile creation process, swipe-to-match feature, app screens, local DMs and group chat dropdown, calendar integration, preliminary matching algorithm, and more.
The SyncUp app is a dynamic web application built with React and Firebase. Follow these steps to get the SyncUp app running locally on your machine for development and testing. Make sure you have Node.js (LTS recommended) and npm installed.
- Open your terminal
- Clone the repository and navigate into the React app by running the following commands:
git clone https://github.com/nesarashree/sync-up-app.git cd sync-up-app/syncup-react - Install dependencies:
npm install - Start the development server:
npm start - Open your web browser and go to
http://localhost:3000
You should now see the SyncUp app running locally!
Examining the sociotechnical concepts driving SyncUp, our final paper discusses how our design choices facilitate meaningful academic connections. We analyze pilot data demonstrating how group features lowered barriers to meetups and increased engagement. We also outline future directions for scaling, intelligent matching, and privacy considerations.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/16cV8kAuYDsp79qpN7NfNefhikznAIS7AkAAGl79JkBo/edit?usp=sharing