As international freshmen ourselves, we know firsthand how easy it is to get lost on a campus as big as UT Dallas, especially during one's first year here. Even though UTD maps is a great resource, it is still confusing for many to understand. That is why we wanted to create a smarter and more intuitive solution—an AI-powered navigator that helps you in real-time through visuals.
Comet Compass is an AI-powered campus navigation assistant designed to help students and visitors find their way around UT Dallas more easily. The app allows users to receive guidance to buildings and important facilities and be able to learn their way around campus visually.
We built Comet Compass using modern web technologies and AI tools. The interface was designed to be simple and student-friendly while integrating intelligent responses and navigation support. Our tech stack included: JavaScript / React-based frontend, Tailwind CSS for UI design, AI APIs for conversational assistance and exploration of the device camera to eventually show directions visually on screen.
One challenge was figuring out how to combine AI responses with navigation features in a way that feels intuitive for users. We also had limited time during the hackathon, so building everything we envisioned, especially the camera-based navigation, was a bit difficult.
We’re proud that we were able to turn a real student problem into a working prototype during the hackathon. We successfully built an AI assistant that can help guide users around campus and designed a navigation concept that could eventually make campus exploration much easier for new students. Plus, we were able to attend so many workshops and learn new things.
We learned teamwork, collaboration, time management, working under pressure, and learning and implementing new concepts side by side. We also learned a lot about quickly turning an idea into a prototype and we learned how to integrate AI tools into real-world applications and design something that is actually useful for students.
Always bigger and better next time. Each experience is a learning opportunity.