Inspiration
It all started because we kept missing free pizza. Campus life moves fast! There is free food, club events, safety notices, lost items, etc, and most of it gets buried in group chats, Instagram stories, or word of mouth. By the time you hear about it, it’s gone. We wanted a single, real-time place where students could see what’s happening around them, visually, instantly, and locally.
What it does
Nitrogen is a real-time, location-based campus alert app. Students can:
- View alerts pinned on a live map
- Browse a feed of recent posts
- Create alerts with a title, description, category, optional photo, expiry time, and location
- Filter by categories like Food, Safety, Social, Academic, Sports, Lost & Found, and Events
- Receive real-time updates
- It turns location-based campus information into something visible and actionable
How we built it
Frontend: React Native (Expo SDK 54), React Navigation, NativeWind, React Native Maps Backend & Database: Supabase (PostgreSQL, Auth, Storage, Realtime) Authentication: Supabase Auth Image Uploads: Supabase Storage Real-time updates: Supabase Realtime subscriptions We structured the app using stack + tab navigation and context providers for auth and location.
Challenges we ran into
- iOS/Android simulator issues.
- Fixing network issues between simulator and Supabase
- Implementing UofM campus boundary validation for alerts
- Managing map rendering performance and real-time updates
Accomplishments that we're proud of
- A fully functional real-time alert system
- Map-based UI with category colors
- Secure authentication
- Clean navigation flow with login -> tabs -> screens
What we learned
- How to properly structure a full-stack mobile app
- The importance of database security
- Real-time systems are powerful but require careful state management
- Clear team role division makes a huge difference under time pressure
- And we learned that free pizza is a great motivator
What's next for Nitrogen
- Push notifications for alerts
- Image uploads in alert details
- Reddit type upvoting system to discourage fake alerts and spamming
- AI-based alert moderation for harmful content/inappropriate alerts
- Expanding beyond UM campus to other universities
Built With
- css
- expo.io
- javascript
- postgresql
- react-native
- reactnativemaps
- sql
- supabase
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