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  Our project UI

Restroom Finder

Track: Clean up your city

Pitch Slide Deck: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1m7Dk6DxEfMqC7gmsDeoqEMc5bARq3cnp-bIo7A3GJM0/edit?usp=sharing

Inspiration

Access to clean, safe, and dignified public restrooms is something many people take for granted — but for unhoused individuals, menstruators, and people with disabilities, it can be a daily challenge. We were inspired by the need for better hygiene infrastructure in cities, especially after noticing how hard it is to find restrooms that are actually clean, accessible, and stocked with essentials like menstrual products.

Lack of access to menstrual products disproportionately affects women living in poverty, making it even harder for them to maintain basic hygiene and dignity. For unhoused individuals, even finding a clean and safe restroom is a daily struggle that impacts health, safety, and personal dignity. Our project aims to close these gaps and promote sanitation, dignity, and equality for all.

What We Learned

Throughout this project, we deepened our skills in fullstack development, AI integration, and location-based services. We learned how to analyze user-generated content (reviews and images) using AI to automatically assess restrooms across multiple important indicators, such as cleanliness, accessibility, and menstrual product availability — a critical feature for supporting women, girls, and unhoused individuals facing economic hardship.

How We Built It

We built Restroom Finder using a fullstack setup:

• Frontend: Built with Next.js and styled using shadcn/ui for a fast, responsive, and accessible user experience.
• Backend: Powered by Supabase for real-time database updates and authentication.
• Mapping: Integrated Google Maps API to allow users to easily find and add restroom locations.
• AI Analysis: We used AI models to analyze user-submitted reviews and photos, automatically tagging restrooms with indicators like cleanliness, accessibility features, and the presence of menstrual products — helping address critical hygiene needs for vulnerable populations.

Challenges We Faced

• Data Quality: Ensuring that AI analysis of user-submitted reviews and photos was accurate and fair was a significant challenge. We had to fine-tune our prompts and model settings carefully.
• Location Accuracy: Handling precise geolocation and mapping new restrooms reliably with the Google Maps API took considerable effort.
• User Experience: Balancing simplicity and power in the user interface — we wanted the app to be quick and easy to use while offering detailed information — took several design iterations.
• Scalability: Designing a backend that can scale with user-contributed data while maintaining fast performance was a major focus during development.

Accomplishments We're Proud Of

• Successfully integrated AI to analyze both user reviews and restroom images for key indicators like cleanliness, accessibility, and menstrual product availability.
• Built a fullstack, real-time, and scalable application using Next.js, Supabase, shadcn/ui, and Google Maps API.
• Created a smooth and intuitive user experience that makes it easy for anyone to find or add restrooms.
• Addressed an important real-world problem related to sanitation, hygiene, and urban infrastructure.
• Developed a solution that promotes dignity and accessibility for underserved and unhoused communities.

Community Impact

Access to clean, safe, and accessible restrooms is a critical yet often overlooked component of urban infrastructure — and its impact extends far beyond basic convenience. In San Jose, CA, where rapid urban growth and a significant unhoused population create pressing public health and sanitation challenges, Restroom Finder could make a meaningful difference.

By helping residents and visitors easily locate clean, stocked, and accessible restrooms — especially those offering free menstrual products — our platform promotes greater dignity, safety, and health outcomes across the community. For San Jose’s unhoused individuals, people with disabilities, families with young children, and women experiencing poverty, this tool offers a reliable way to meet basic hygiene needs.

Access to menstrual products through public restrooms can significantly reduce barriers that women face in education, employment, and public life. At the same time, providing safe hygiene access to unhoused individuals can directly impact public health, safety, and overall quality of life — fostering a more equitable and inclusive community.

Additionally, by crowd-sourcing and verifying restroom data, Restroom Finder empowers community members to actively participate in improving their city’s hygiene infrastructure. This bottom-up approach not only fills current gaps but also provides valuable data that local governments and organizations could use to identify underserved areas, prioritize maintenance efforts, and allocate resources more effectively.

In the long term, Restroom Finder could help foster a more inclusive and dignified public space in San Jose — ensuring that access to hygiene essentials, including menstrual care, is treated not as a privilege, but as a basic human right.

What's Next for Restroom Finder

• Improve the AI models for even better accuracy in analyzing restroom images and reviews.
• Expand coverage to more cities and scaling up
• Partner with local governments and advocacy organizations to populate verified restrooms.
• Build a rewards or points system to encourage users to contribute and maintain high-quality restroom listings.
• Integrate further indicators, such as available of showers, or availability of other free/low cost hygiene products

Built With

• css
• google-maps
• html
• next.js
• shadcn-ui
• supabase
• tailwind
• typescript