View friends, courses and events all in one place.
Find common courses with friends.
View common time slots avialable for events with friends.

SyncUp – The Smart Social Calendar

Make your social life effortless. Sync your schedule. Get your time back.

Inspiration

We get it—time is precious, but syncing up with friends isn’t always easy. As university students, we’ve all been stuck in the never-ending loop of group chats: 20+ messages just to pick a time to hang out, and the constant back-and-forth of “Are you free Tuesday?” “How about Thursday?” “Wait, I’ve got a class then…” It’s messy, frustrating, and takes time away from both studying and connecting. So we asked: What if scheduling just worked automatically?

What It Does

SyncUp helps you find free time with friends in a snap. Just log in, connect with your friends, and see a live heatmap of when everyone’s available. One click creates an event that shows up on everyone’s calendars. No more polls. No more confusion. Just easy, automatic scheduling.

How We Built It

SyncUp is a full-stack web app designed with speed, simplicity, and smart automation in mind:

Frontend: Built with Next.js and React, styled with Tailwind CSS for a sleek, responsive design
Backend: Node.js/Express server to handle user data and calculate availability
Data: Syncs directly with the DevSoc GraphQL API to pull in official UNSW timetables (lectures, tutorials, labs)
Core Algorithm: A real-time engine that combines everyone’s schedules and finds overlapping free time
Database: PostgreSQL (SQLite in dev) for storing users, friends, events, and eventually assessments

The magic happens with the SyncUp View—a dynamic overlay that shows group availability as a simple, color-coded heatmap. Click on any green slot, name your event (“Study Session” or “Coffee Break”), and it’s scheduled for everyone.

Challenges We Faced

Timezone & daylight saving issues: Ensuring calendar events display correctly across all user locations.
Algorithm efficiency: Fine-tuning our matching logic to handle 10+ users without slowing down.
UI/UX clarity: Making the heatmap intuitive—green means free, red means busy, gray means partial availability.

What We’re Proud Of

✅ Built a functional MVP in under 36 hours ✅ Created true one-click group scheduling—from login to shared event in less than 30 seconds ✅ Designed a super intuitive heatmap that makes finding free time obvious ✅ Showed real-world value for university students who are tired of endless coordination

What We Learned

Automation is about removing friction, not just bots.
Even something as simple as “when are we free?” requires a lot of thought in terms of data and design.
GraphQL is powerful, but you need to be careful with how you query and cache data.
The best features are invisible—users shouldn’t think about scheduling; it should just happen.

What’s Next for SyncUp

We’re just getting started. Here’s where we’re heading:

Phase 1: MVP – “Automated Availability” (Live!)

Sync with UNSW timetables
Connect with friends
Visualize group availability with a heatmap
One-click event creation

Phase 2: “Intelligent Academic Planning”

Add assignment deadlines and exams
“Find Study Time”: Automatically suggest free slots before deadlines
Distinguish between classes, study sessions, and social events

Phase 3: “The SyncUp Optimizer” (Future Vision)

AI-powered weekly planning: Input your course load, sleep schedule, and social goals
The system will generate your “Perfect Week”—balancing study time and social time
Align group schedules to maximize shared free time