SlugWay — UCSC Accessible Navigation (Next.js)

Accessibility-focused campus navigation for UC Santa Cruz. Users drop pins marking accessibility features (stairs, ramps, elevators, hazards). Gemma 4 acts as a routing agent server-side: it calls a get_nearby_pins function to check conditions near the start, end, and midpoint of a trip, then reasons about the best accessible route and explains why.

Built on a personal project concept about UCSC's difficult, hilly terrain — this Next.js version and the Gemma 4 agent layer were built this hackathon sprint.

Setup (in VS Code)

1. Open this folder in VS Code.
2. Open a terminal (Ctrl+`) and run:

   npm install

3. Copy the env example and fill it in:

   cp .env.local.example .env.local

   Open .env.local and add two lines:

   GEMMA_API_KEY=your_key_from_aistudio.google.com/apikey
   MONGODB_URI=your_connection_string_from_mongodb_atlas
   

   Both stay server-side, never exposed to the browser. .env.local is already gitignored.
4. Run it:

   npm run dev

5. Open http://localhost:3000

Two ways to report accessibility issues

• 📍 Manual pin — click the pin icon in the header, then click a spot on the map, and pick a type (stairs, ramp, elevator, hazard).
• 📷 Photo report — click the camera icon, then click a spot on the map. This opens your camera/file picker; the photo is sent to Gemma 4's vision capability, which decides if the spot is unsafe for someone with mobility limitations and automatically drops a labeled pin if so.

All pins are saved to MongoDB and shared with everyone using the app — new pins from any user show up for everyone next time the map loads.

Push to your own GitHub repo

git init
git add .
git commit -m "SlugWay: Gemma 4 accessible campus routing agent"
git branch -M main
# create a new EMPTY repo on github.com under your account first, then:
git remote add origin https://github.com/<your-username>/slugway.git
git push -u origin main

.env.local is already in .gitignore — your API key will never get committed.

Deploy (Vercel, free, easiest for Next.js)

1. Go to vercel.com, sign in with GitHub, "Add New Project," import this repo.
2. In the project's Environment Variables settings, add GEMMA_API_KEY with your key.
3. Deploy — you'll get a live https://slugway-<something>.vercel.app URL for your demo link.

For the Kaggle writeup

• Track: Autonomous Agent Track
• Gemma 4 drives the actual routing decision via server-side function calling against live pin data — not a single prompt-response, a genuine multi-turn tool-use loop.
• Attach your GitHub repo link and the Vercel live demo URL.