SoundScape

Listen to the Earth - See it grows

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Inspiration

  • We wanted to reconnect people with nature through sound, not just photos or text, but real, immersive listening.
  • Our goal: spark care for the planet by making nature’s sounds fun, social, and shareable.
  • We imagined a community where birdsongs, ocean waves, and wind through trees become collective art.

What it does

  • Lets users upload, filter, and like natural sound clips.
  • A leaderboard celebrates top contributors, both those who record and those who inspire through likes.
  • Encourages people to listen more attentively to the world around them, finding beauty in everyday soundscapes.
  • Helps users explore nature audio maps and discover popular local sounds.

How we built it

  • Frontend: Built with Next.js for a fast, interactive, and accessible experience.
  • Machine Learning: Integrated YAMNet to classify and tag natural sounds (birds, rain, forest, etc) automatically.
  • Database: Used Convex for real-time updates and state management with minimal setup.
  • AI Tools:
    • Gemini Veo helped us generate creative visuals and ambient labels.
    • Claude assisted in refining copy and feature ideation.
    • Search: Elastic powers efficient sound discovery by tags and similarity.

Challenges we ran into

  • Making the UI feel alive, adapting smoothly to new sounds in real time without feeling robotic.
  • Balancing fast uploads and ML processing without breaking the flow of exploration.
  • Handling diverse audio quality while keeping classification accurate.
  • Designing sound-driven interfaces that remain intuitive for short user sessions.

What we learned

  • Subtle design details (like wave motion synced to audio intensity) dramatically increase emotional connection.
  • Combining AI tools can amplify creativity far beyond their individual uses.
  • Building a product around listening reminds you to slow down and appreciate nuance.
  • Collaborative development thrives when everyone’s work literally resonates.

What's next for SoundScape

  • Launch community challenges (“sound of the week”) to keep engagement high.
  • Add geo-tagged sound maps to explore nature’s symphony around the world.
  • Introduce 3D audio experiences and spatial mixing for immersive playback.
  • More sustainability tie-ins: sound-based donations to conservation groups.
  • Mobile app expansion for on-the-go recording and discovery.

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