StudyBuddy

A collaborative learning prototype built for Hack4Impact
Study forums, accountability goals, peer discovery, profile gamification, and real-time collaboration experiments in one student-first interface.

Overview

StudyBuddy was built as part of Hack4Impact, organized by the IEEE Computer Society VIT, where the project won Runner-Up.

The idea behind the project is simple: studying gets easier when it becomes social, visible, and collaborative. Instead of learning in isolation, StudyBuddy brings together:

• subject-based discussion spaces
• study-goal and commitment tracking
• peer discovery and accountability
• profile-driven motivation through progress and badges
• real-time communication experiments for collaboration

This repository captures the hackathon prototype and the product direction behind it.

What The Project Includes

1. Forum and buddy discovery

The landing experience introduces StudyBuddy as a collaborative learning platform and highlights top forums and top study buddies across subjects like DBMS, OS, VLSI, and InfoSec.

2. Study goal tracking

Users can browse active commitments, check progress percentages, and navigate to an add-goal flow for creating new study targets.

3. Social accountability feed

The social page surfaces other learners, their subjects, and countdown-style commitment windows to create a sense of momentum and public accountability.

4. Profile and gamification

The profile view showcases:

• commitments completed
• badges earned
• average response time
• a direct path into chat

5. Real-time collaboration experiments

The project also includes a backend and collaboration-oriented pieces for:

• Socket.IO-powered whiteboard synchronization
• real-time chat events
• a react-chat-engine based chat view

Tech Stack

Frontend

• React 18
• React Router
• Axios
• React Chat Engine
• CSS-based UI screens

Backend

• Node.js
• Express
• Socket.IO
• MongoDB with Mongoose

Project Structure

study-buddy/
├── src/                 # React app and screens
├── public/              # Static assets used by the UI
├── backend/             # Express + Socket.IO backend scaffold
└── README.md

Running Locally

Prerequisites

• Node.js and npm

Frontend

npm install
npm start

The React app runs on http://localhost:3000.

Backend

cd backend
npm install
npm start

The backend starts on http://localhost:3009 unless PORT is overridden.

Optional environment variable

If you want to use the MongoDB connection scaffold in the backend, create a .env file inside backend/ with:

MONGODB_URI=your_mongodb_connection_string

Current Prototype Notes

This repository reflects a hackathon build, so a few parts are best understood as prototype-stage work:

• the frontend is largely a polished UI prototype with seeded content
• the backend contains Socket.IO chat and whiteboard logic plus Mongo CRUD scaffolding
• some backend/database pieces are present but not fully wired into the current frontend flows
• the chat view includes demo credentials in code and should be replaced before any real deployment

Why This Project Matters

StudyBuddy was designed around a practical student problem: staying consistent is hard when studying feels solitary. By combining community, visibility, and lightweight accountability, the project explores how software can make learning feel more shared and more motivating.

Status

Hackathon prototype with strong product direction, UI coverage across key flows, and foundational real-time collaboration work.