Watchdog

A control room for SPOT, the four-legged inspection robot. Built at KnightHacks 2026 for the NextEra Energy "SPOT Management Dashboard" challenge.

Try it online: https://knight-hacks2026.vercel.app

What problem does it solve?

Power plants send robots like Boston Dynamics' SPOT on walking routes to read gauges, take heat and sound measurements, and photograph equipment. When a route ends, the robot usually reports one word: "completed". That word hides a lot. A "completed" route can still have skipped stops, readings that can't be trusted, and serious problems with the equipment it looked at.

Watchdog reads everything the robot recorded and tells the person on duty, in plain language:

• what the robot actually found on each route,
• which problems need a human decision first,
• and which patterns repeat across many routes (stops that keep failing, equipment that keeps showing up, settings that work better).

What you can see

Screen	What it shows
Live	A cartoon map of the plant with SPOT walking its route, stop by stop, as it happened. A side panel lists what it is doing and anything that needs attention. You can also try "what if" situations, like a heat wave or a box blocking the charging dock, and check whether today's weather is safe for an outdoor route.
Missions	Every route the robot walked, with search and filters. Routes marked "completed" that still had problems are flagged.
Mission report	One route explained: what went wrong, why, how serious it is, and buttons for the operator to choose what to do (send a technician, keep watching, or dismiss).
Equipment page	The history of one piece of equipment: its readings over time, past problems, and a sample inspection photo.
Insights	The big picture across all routes: where problems cluster on the map, which stops fail most, how battery level relates to failures, and how two robot software versions compare.

All plant data is fictional. NextEra Energy supplied it for the hackathon; no real plant, robot or equipment is shown.

Run it on your own computer

You only need this if you want to run your own copy. The link above works without installing anything.

1. Install the tools (once)

• Node.js version 20 or newer, from https://nodejs.org (choose the "LTS" download). It includes npm, which installs the rest.
• Git, from https://git-scm.com, to download the code. (Or skip Git: on the GitHub page click Code → Download ZIP and unzip it.)

2. Download the code

Open a terminal (on Windows: PowerShell; on Mac: Terminal) and run:

git clone https://github.com/jbear05/KnightHacks2026.git
cd KnightHacks2026

3. Start it with the built-in sample data (easiest)

npm ci
npm run dev

The first command downloads what the app needs and takes a few minutes. When the second one prints Ready, open http://localhost:3000 in your browser. To stop it, press Ctrl + C in the terminal.

In this mode a yellow "Mock data mode" banner at the top reminds you that you are looking at sample data. Every screen works, but choices you make (like "send a technician") are forgotten when you reload the page.

4. Optional: connect it to a real database

This makes the app read from a database and remember the operator's choices. It takes about ten minutes and needs two extra things:

• A PostgreSQL database. A free one from https://neon.tech works. Copy its connection link; it starts with postgresql://. Team members can use the team's existing Neon database, which already has the data loaded, and skip the migrate and seed lines below.
• The challenge data. NextEra's kit isn't stored in this repository. Put the folder SPOT_KnightHacks_Challenge_Kit Part One from the kit inside the KnightHacks2026 folder.

Start the data server (the "backend") in one terminal:

cd backend
npm ci
cp .env.example .env

On Windows PowerShell use copy .env.example .env instead of cp. Open the new file backend/.env in a text editor and paste your database link after DATABASE_URL=. Then:

npm run migrate
npm run seed -- "../SPOT_KnightHacks_Challenge_Kit Part One/02_DATA"
npm run dev

migrate creates the tables and seed loads the challenge data; you only run them once per database. Leave npm run dev running: the backend is now at http://localhost:3001.

In a second terminal, from the KnightHacks2026 folder, point the app at the backend and start it:

cp .env.example .env.local
npm run dev

(Again, copy instead of cp on Windows.) Open http://localhost:3000. The yellow "Mock data mode" banner is gone, and operator choices now survive a reload. To go back to sample data, delete .env.local and restart npm run dev.

If something goes wrong

What you see	What to do
npm or node is "not recognized"	Node.js isn't installed, or the terminal was open before you installed it. Install it and open a new terminal.
Port 3000 or 3001 "already in use"	The app is already running in another terminal. Stop it with Ctrl + C, or use the one that is running.
Pages show "couldn't load" errors after step 4	The backend isn't running, or backend/.env has the wrong database link. Check the first terminal for an error.
Missing dataset file when seeding	The challenge folder isn't in the right place, or its name is different. It must be named exactly SPOT_KnightHacks_Challenge_Kit Part One.

The team

Role	Person
Design & Frontend	Jair Garcia (@jbear05)
Map & Simulation	Ilias Bahau@IliasCoder
Backend & Database	Alfredo Cuevas @FredoC7
Data & AI	Rayan Hannani @Rayan15-07

Want the technical details?

ARCHITECTURE.md explains how the pieces fit together, with a section for each role. The backend has its own guide in backend/README.md, and the map engine in map-sim/README.md.