stormhacks 2025
Foundit is a digital lost and found platform that uses AI image recognition to help students and staff recover items.
Date
October 4 - 5, 2025
Timeline
24 hours
Role
Product Designer
Deliverables
Branding
High-Fidelity Wireframes
Interactive Prototype
Table Of Contents
Problem
Students often lose personal items like IDs, headphones, and wallets, but the recovery process is slow and unorganized. Without a system, most reports go unanswered, and valuable time is wasted.
Goal
Student Goals
- •Submit lost items in under a minute
- •Search easily by filter, location and item
- •Get notified immediately if there’s a match
Campus Security goals
- •Reduce manual sorting
- •Organize lost items
- •Improve response time and satisfaction
Research
With the tight hackathon timeline, I used a combination of an AI assisted research and real interviews to gather insights efficiently.
The AI tool used online data to compile on existing lost and found systems, market gaps, user personas, and user flows. This helped speed up the research phase and outline the core pain points.
My team interviewed campus security and custodians who manage the lost and found process. We discovered issues like inconsistent tracking, inefficient listings, and time wasted verifying ownership. Calling the office for lost items also proved ineffective, often causing delays and miscommunication. However, with Foundit, staff can now manage lost and found items more efficiently and will also help students identify their items faster.
Brand Identity Design
The Foundit brand was designed to feel trustworthy and approachable which is perfect for helping students and staff reconnect with their belongings. The system combines a simple logo, clear typography and a calm colour palette.
User Personas & User Flows
After identifying my user personas by using an online tool and through the interviews, I mapped out the user flows for both students and staff to help design the features that mattered most:
- •Quick reporting for students
- •Organized tracking and verification tools for security staff
Wireframes
I designed low-fidelity wireframes to outline main interactions and structure. It was used to help reduct friction to ensure non technical users such as staffs can use the app effortlessly.
Admin
Student
We integrated AI assistance to speed up submissions for both users:
- •it could autofill item details from photos or text for students and suggest matching reports for staff to reduce manual verification.
Through testing, I also condensed the multi step form into a single page and built an admin dashboard for security guards to manage claims, verify ownership, and mark items as returned.
Final Solution
Foundit transformed the manual lost and found process into a modern web app for universities. It once relied on handwritten logs and calls to now an intuitive online platform tool that makes reporting and recovering lost items faster and easier.
Key Improvements
- •Handwritten logs → Digital reporting dashboard
- •Email based claims → Structured tracking interface
- •Unclear ownership → Photo based verification
Deliverables includes:
Despite the 24 hour timeframe, our team designed and coded a working prototype
- •UI Screens: Reporting form, search results, and staff dashboard
- •Design System: Color palette, typography, logo, and reusable components
- •High-Fidelity Prototype: Complete user journey for both student and staff roles
Reflection
Through this project, I learned how to speed up the research process using AI tools while still valuing real world insights.
I also learned how to communicate effectively with my team and identify what helps streamline the design process to complete the project on time.
Other than that, I also learned that it is important to fuel yourself with healthy snacks and food in order to work an overnight hackathon. Staying awake for more than 24 hours that day made me realize that hackathons are not that easy, but was still a fun event to experience with my team.
