Lost & Found
track what matters, find it fast
Project file · Rijul Poudel · Lawrence, Kansas
Lost & Found
track what matters, find it fast
- Built at
- HackKU, Apr 2025
- Location
- Lawrence, KS
- Team
- R. Poudel et al. (team of 3)
- Format
- 48-hr hackathon
- Stack
- React Native · Expo · Firebase · Flask · Python
- Status
- shipped
The story
Campus lost-and-found runs on phone calls and bulletin boards. There is no way to search by location, time, or description; you just hope someone turned your thing in. We built the fix in 48 hours.
Cross-platform was non-negotiable (lost items don't care about your phone OS), so React Native with Expo gave us one codebase. Firebase supplied real-time sync, which meant item status updates propagated to every client instantly.
The Flask middleware was a deliberate architecture call: a clean REST surface we controlled, room for Python search and matching logic, and Firebase credentials kept server-side. We scoped ruthlessly. Auth, item creation, location tagging, and search were the four pillars; everything else was cut.
How it's built
Three layers: React Native client, Flask REST API, Firebase. The Flask layer owns business logic and credentials; Firestore provides real-time document sync.
- React Native (Expo)
- Cross-platform UI: item listing, search, camera capture, and live updates via Firestore listeners.
- Flask REST API
- Python middleware exposing item CRUD and location-based search; validates input and holds the Firebase Admin SDK server-side.
- Firebase (Firestore, Storage, Auth)
- Real-time item documents, CDN-served item photos, and anonymous-to-full auth for reporting versus claiming.
Notes
This page is designed to be printed. ⌘P yields a clean project sheet.