Find where you can actually study right now.
StudySpot is a real-time study spot discovery platform for UCF students and nearby Orlando cafés.
Instead of guessing which places are full, students see a live availability score powered by verified check-ins and time-based trends — plus what others there are studying.
Build a web app that:
- Displays campus and nearby Orlando study spots on an interactive map
- Allows verified check-ins with study topic tags
- Calculates a live availability score
- Ranks locations by likelihood of finding a seat and personal preference
- Enables lightweight scheduled study sessions
- Allows users to join study sessions and view participant lists
- Allows users to toggle “Open to Study” to connect with others at the same location
- Provides public user profiles
- Allows users to follow other users
- Allows users to save, rate, and write notes about study spots
- Curated campus and Orlando study spots
- Clickable location cards
- Map view + ranked list view
- Filters:
- Open now
- Distance
- Basic vibe tags (quiet, outlets)
- Optional user location centering
Each location displays:
- Live availability score
- Confidence indicator (High / Moderate / Limited)
- Last updated timestamp
- Upcoming study sessions
Users can check in and select:
- Busyness level
- Plenty
- Filling
- Packed
- Study topic (optional, e.g., CS, Calc 2, MCAT)
- “Open to Study” toggle (optional)
Check-ins:
- Are location-aware (GPS-based when possible)
- Drive live availability calculations
- Contribute to historical time-of-day patterns
- Expire for live scoring after inactivity
- Are stored long-term for future modeling
Availability is calculated using:
- Active recent check-ins (high weight)
- Time-of-day baseline pattern (medium weight)
- Day-of-week patterns (medium weight)
Each location displays a Confidence Indicator:
- High confidence — dense recent activity
- Moderate confidence
- Limited data
This ensures transparency, especially in low-activity areas.
Users can create scheduled study sessions at a location:
- Topic
- Start time
- End time
- Maximum participants
- Public visibility
Other users can:
- View upcoming sessions at a location
- See how many participants have joined
- View participant profiles
- Join a session if space is available
Sessions automatically expire after their end time.
No full messaging system is included in the MVP.
Public profiles display:
- Total check-ins
- Most visited study spots
- Most studied topics
- Saved or favorited locations
- Optional ratings
- Optional public notes
Profiles show aggregated data only.
No real-time tracking or live location broadcasting.
Users can:
- Save or favorite study spots
- Add a rating (optional)
- Write a personal note
- Set note visibility:
- Private
- Public
Public notes appear only on the user’s profile.
Private notes are visible only to the user.
Notes are not displayed globally on location pages.
Users can:
- Follow other users
- View public profiles of users they follow
- See follower and following counts
The follow system does not include:
- Mutual friend approval
- Messaging
- Activity feeds
- Notifications
This keeps the social layer lightweight and focused.
The following features may be added if development remains on schedule:
- Direct messaging between users
- Full chat system for study sessions
- Friends-only content visibility tier
- Location rating aggregation system
- User-created study spots
- Advanced gamification (badges, streaks, leaderboards)
- AI-powered natural language search
- Advanced ML-based recommendation engine
- Notification system for study sessions
StudySpot prioritizes:
- Real human signal over scraped or fabricated data
- Transparency through confidence indicators
- Lightweight social coordination without overcomplication
- Clean, fast UX with minimal friction
The goal is to make answering this question effortless:
“Where should I go to study right now?”
All backend schema changes must go through Alembic migrations. See:
backend/MIGRATIONS.md