Whispers

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  Viewing Whisper screen

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  Add Whisper screen

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  Profile screen

Inspiration

Whispers was inspired by the messages in Dark Souls and other souls-like games. They're short notes left by players for others to discover in their playthroughs of the game. The concept of digital archaeology, where hidden pieces of history are uncovered in the real world was another driving inspiration in this project. We wanted to connect the two and bring the idea to life, creating a world where every location could hold a story left behind. We envision that over long courses of time, notes from people years prior can shape history. We can digitally share little bits of our lives, happy memories with loved ones or a fun outting with friends, and immortalize it for people to come across.

What it does

At a very high level, Whispers lets users leave digital messages tied to real-world coordinates. Others can discover these “whispers” when they physically arrive at the same spot, creating a global, shared layer of memories and thoughts that live on the map.

How we built it

• Frontend: Next.js 15 + React 19 + Tailwind CSS
• Backend: Prisma ORM + Supabase Postgres
• Auth: Supabase Auth
• Map: Google Maps API with live user tracking
• Hosting: Vercel (serverless deployment) We started by scaffolding the app, building the backend plumbing and implenting the database and authentication. From there, we were free to start adding features. The very barebones and unstyled version of our app was just a map that tracked your location. We added pins that served as Whispers and a UI the surround it, and slowly added the little bits that brought our app to life. In order to use it, we're using a Progressive Web App system. You can download the demo by opening the app on Safari (at the moment, only iOS supported), clicking share, and then "Add to Home Screen." ## Challenges we ran into
• Making live location tracking stable and smooth
• Managing auth-protected data between client and server
• Designing a clean, mobile-first UI around real-time map data
• Debugging Google Maps async library imports in the latest Next.js environment ## Accomplishments that we're proud of
• Real-time location tracking on a fully interactive map
• Secure discovery logic that only shows whispers users have found
• A minimal, immersive interface
• Karma upvoting/downvoting ## What we learned We learned how to effectively use Git and version control most importantly. Effectively collaborating and using our own branches and merges as well as dealing with conflicts really allowed us to work more efficiently as a team and figure out the division of labor. We also learned how to effectively use LLM’s to our advantage and allow them to guide us through challenges in creating the frontend, backend, database connection, as well as the deployment to Vercel. ## What’s next This is a prototype of course, but it leaves a lot of room for potential. Heat maps to show frequently visited spots as well as possible ML integration to show emotional appeal and contextual Whisper recommendations are also possible. We can also add possible thread conversations with past users who have left notes to facilitate socializing between users. At scale, we need to implement a method and displaying a certain amount whispers at a time.

Built With

• next
• postgresql
• prisma
• react
• supabase
• typescript
• vercel