Mordecai Mengesteab

a course requirement explorer that turns ncsu's maze of prerequisites into an interactive map. uses graph databases and LLMs to make sense of messy course data. integrates RMP data to help students navigate both courses AND professors. built for ncsu first, but designed to scale to other schools (unc support in progress).

┌──────────────────────────────────┐
│ Status: Finished                 │
│ Timeline: Dec. 2024 - present    │
│ Tech Stack:                      │
│ - Frontend: Next.JS, React       │
│ - Backend: Express + Neo4j       │
│ - Data: Scrapy, Ollama, GraphQL  │
│ - Pipeline: Docker, Node         │
│ - Hosting: EC2, Vercel, Aura     │
└──────────────────────────────────┘
          

a reimagining of ncsu's dining hall menus with accessibility and health at the forefront. transforms complicated cafeteria offerings into an easily filterable system. integrates nutritional data and allergen info to help students make informed choices. includes features like calorie tracking, dietary restriction filters, and meal planning for busy campus life.

┌──────────────────────────────────┐
│ Status: Finished                 │
│ Timeline: Dec. 2024 - present    │
│ Tech Stack:                      │
│ - Frontend: Next.JS, React       │
│ - Backend: Express               │
│ - Data: Scrapy, Cron             │
│ - Hosting: DigitalOcean          │
└──────────────────────────────────┘
          

a textbook swapping and selling platform for ncsu students. built with a focus on user experience and accessibility, it aims to make the process of buying and selling textbooks as easy as possible. (along with reducing the waste of textbooks)

┌─────────────────────────────────┐
│ Status: Finished                │
│ Timeline: 2024 - present        │
│ Tech Stack:                     │
│ - Frontend: Next.JS, React      │
│ - Backend: Node + Express, EC2  │
│ - DB: Prisma, AWS RDS           │
│ - Deployment: Docker, Vercel    │
└─────────────────────────────────┘

designed mission control systems for real-time rocket telemetry with drag-and-drop graphs and sub-millisecond latency, making insights accessible and actionable.

┌─────────────────────────────────┐
│ Status: Ongoing                 │
│ Timeline: 2024 - present        │
│ Tech Stack:                     │
│ - Data Flow: Redis, Docker      │
│ - Frontend: React, Tailwind CSS │
│ - Backend: Python, Rust         │
└─────────────────────────────────┘
            

universitrack simplifies college applications with generative ai. taken from ideation to product, it personalizes essay-writing assistance and tracks deadlines by connecting academics, hobbies, and goals.

┌─────────────────────────────────┐
│ Status: Live                    │
│ Timeline: 2023 - present        │
│ Tech Stack:                     │
│ - Backend: Golang, PostgreSQL   │
│ - Frontend: React, Tailwind CSS │
└─────────────────────────────────┘
    

quizless reimagined study tools with GPT integration, enabling auto-generated questions and smarter quizzes—launched months before quizlet's ai features.

┌─────────────────────────────────┐
│ Status: Completed               │
│ Timeline: April 2023            │
│ Tech Stack:                     │
│ - Backend: Node.js, Express     │
│ - Frontend: React               │
│ - Database: MongoDB             │
└─────────────────────────────────┘

my first internship where i developed 3D simulations and digital twins for education and healthcare. highlights include questsim, an immersive historical learning tool.

┌─────────────────────────────────┐
│ Status: Completed               │
│ Timeline: 2023 - 2024           │
│ Tech Stack:                     │
│ - Simulations: Unity,           │
│   React Three Fiber             │
│ - UI: React                     │
└─────────────────────────────────┘
  

a mobile platform to connect users with nonprofits and charities. additionally, utilized PostGIS to allow for geospatial connections for nearby connections. while challenges in industrial grade web scraping led to shelving, the project offered valuable insights into scaling real-world data pipelines.

┌─────────────────────────────────┐
│ Status: Shelved                 │
│ Timeline: 2023                  │
│ Tech Stack:                     │
│ - App: React Native             │
│ - Backend: Python, Supabase     │
└─────────────────────────────────┘
          

started as a gym tracker with check-ins and streaks. now pivoting to explore general computer vision for real-time behavior tracking.

┌─────────────────────────────────┐
│ Status: Pivoting                │
│ Timeline: 2024 - present        │
│ Tech Stack:                     │
│ - CV: Pytorch, DeepLabv3        │
│ - App: React Native             │
└─────────────────────────────────┘