EcoPilot AI — Personal Carbon Footprint Coach

🏆 Official Google PromptWars Submission

Challenge Statement

Design a solution that helps individuals understand, track, and reduce their carbon footprint through simple actions and personalized insights.

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📋 Challenge Mapping

PromptWars Requirement	EcoPilot Solution
Understand	Dynamic Source Breakdown of emissions, real-time natural language activity parser
Track	Chronological 7-day trend analysis, category share indicators, cumulative tracking
Reduce	One-click daily eco action offsets, net footprint calculations updating instantly
Personalized Insights	Context-aware AI recommendations generated by Google Gemini using historical activities

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🏗 Architecture & Data Flow

User Input (Natural Language)
   │
   ▼
Google Gemini API (gemini-2.5-flash with gemini-2.5-pro fallback)
   │
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Strict JSON Schema Parser (Zod validation)
   │
   ▼
Carbon Calculation Engine (Deterministic mathematical model)
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   ▼
Local Storage Service (Mock DB/Auth Layer for isolated judges testing)
   │
   ▼
Custom Hooks Layer (useDashboardStats, useActivityLogger, useOnboarding)
   │
   ▼
Accessible Presenter Components (WCAG 2.2 AA Compliance)
   │
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[ Understand ] ───► [ Track ] ───► [ Reduce ]

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🧠 Why EcoPilot? (Why Existing Calculators Fall Short)

• Static Scoring vs. Continuous Coaching: Traditional calculators compute carbon once and provide generic advice. EcoPilot acts as an ongoing mentor that tracks emissions continuously.
• Manual Form Entry vs. Natural Language: Standard calculators require tedious manual input. EcoPilot extracts complex actions from simple phrases ("drove 15 miles, ate chicken salad").
• No Loop Closure vs. Actionable Reduction: Standard apps don't connect advice to action. EcoPilot offers one-click offsets that directly decrement the daily carbon total in real time.

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✨ How EcoPilot Solves the Challenge

1. Understand Your Footprint

• Interactive Input Parser: Evaluates everyday tasks from natural language descriptions.
• Dynamic Source Breakdown: Instantly shows the percentage breakdown of emission contributors directly inside the daily stats panel.

2. Track Your Progress

• 7-Day Trend Charts: Uses Recharts to visualize day-over-day footprints.
• Category Share Pie Chart: Highlights category distribution.
• Tabular Screen Reader Summaries: Provides accessible tables representing chart data.

3. Reduce Your Emissions

• One-Click Eco Actions: Offers quick offset options aligned with user sustainability goals.
• Net Carbon Reductions: Measurable savings that instantly decrease the daily footprint.

4. Personalized AI Insights

• Contextual Advice: Tailors suggestions to the user's specific logged behavior.

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🛠 Engineering & Quality Excellence

♿ Accessibility (WCAG 2.2 AA Compliance)

• Skip Navigation Link: High-contrast, keyboard-focusable link to bypass menus.
• Landmarks: Explicit header, nav, main, and section structural landmarks.
• Tabular Chart Summaries: Hidden HTML tables summarizing complex graphs.
• Reduced Motion: Global CSS overrides respecting browser media preferences.
• High Contrast: AAA-rated dynamic badges and high-contrast text ratios.

🔒 Security & Safety

• Prompt Injection Protection: Sanitizes tags and brackets, wrapping input in isolated XML boundaries.
• Structured JSON Parsing: Rigorous validation using Zod.
• Secure API Handling: Uses Next.js server actions to prevent Client API key leakage.

🧪 Test Coverage

• 25 Pass Specifications: Unit, validation, and integration tests verifying all services.

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🚀 Installation & Setup

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone <repository_url>
   cd EcoPilot-AI

2. Install dependencies:

   npm install

3. Configure Environment Variables: Rename .env.example to .env or create a .env file in the root directory:

   NEXT_PUBLIC_GEMINI_API_KEY=your_gemini_api_key_here

4. Run the development server:

   npm run dev

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🏷 Repository Details for GitHub

• Description: AI-powered personal carbon footprint coach built with Next.js and Gemini AI for Google PromptWars.
• Topics: promptwars, gemini, google-ai, nextjs, typescript, sustainability, carbon-footprint, ai-assistant, tailwindcss, hackathon