SomaSync

Inspiration As a Software Engineering student at Zetech University, I constantly felt a massive disconnect between how we are taught and how we actually work. Our academic lives are trapped in static PDFs and clunky learning portals, while our real skills are built pushing code to GitHub in modern IDEs. I wanted to bridge this gap and transform the journey toward my 2027 graduation into a seamless, professional developer workflow.

What it does SomaSync is an elite Edutech dashboard that gamifies and synchronizes a student's technical life. It pulls live assignments, course rosters, and deadlines directly from the university's Moodle REST API. Using AI, it maps these academic milestones directly to a student's live GitHub commits, creating gamified Git streaks. It turns standard university coursework into a continuous integration pipeline, complete with interactive flashcards, smart timetables, and an omni-input AI chat workspace.

How we built it Frontend: Built with React, Tailwind CSS (using a custom Void Navy and Cyber Neon palette), and Framer Motion for interactive 3D components.

Backend: Powered by Async FastAPI in Python, running in a Dockerized WSL Ubuntu environment.

Database & Auth: Supabase (PostgreSQL with pgvector for AI embeddings).

AI & OCR: Azure Document Intelligence parses complex syllabus PDFs, while the Gemini 2.5 Flash API handles logic, concept matching, and RAG.

Integrations: Direct connections to the Moodle REST API and GitHub REST API.

Challenges we ran into Cloud infrastructure quirks heavily tested our momentum. We ran into strict, invisible Azure student policy locks that blocked deployment regions, trapping us in portal validation loops. We had to pivot and use the Azure CLI in WSL to manually bypass portal caching and region restrictions to spin up our OCR engine. Additionally, mapping unstructured syllabus data to exact Moodle endpoints and GitHub commit histories required precise AI prompting and data structuring.

Accomplishments that we're proud of Successfully linking the Moodle REST API with our backend to pull live token-authenticated data was a massive win. We are also incredibly proud of the UI aesthetic—it feels like a premium developer tool rather than a standard school portal. Finally, navigating the Azure infrastructure via CLI to secure our Document Intelligence endpoint under extreme time pressure was a true DevOps victory.

What we learned We deepened our understanding of cloud infrastructure management, specifically navigating Azure's resource groups, CLI commands, and policy constraints. We also leveled up in building asynchronous Python backends (FastAPI) and learned how to orchestrate complex data flows between legacy LMS platforms and modern AI models.

What's next for SomaSync We plan to package SomaSync as a direct VS Code extension so students never even have to leave their editor to check their syllabus milestones. We also aim to expand the Moodle integration to easily onboard other universities and introduce predictive AI that warns students of deadline overlaps based on their historical coding velocity.