A Student Solution for a Student Problem

We’ve all been there: you trek 20 minutes from your dorm to your favorite study spot, only to find every seat taken. In a last-ditch effort, you settle into a quiet, empty classroom - only to be kicked out a couple minutes later because a lesson is starting.

Maor knows that feeling all too well, and having reached his 4th year, he realized that enough was enough. One day he decided to build a website that would finally bring clarity to students: a website that could tell a student which class or room - no matter where - no matter when - was booked or available. The website? StudySpot.cc

Maor Goldman, 28, agreed to sit down for an interview with us. Humble by nature, he did not wish to make himself the main focus.

Hello, tell me who you are?

Maor Goldman, fourth year undergrad in the Computer Engineering program.

What else can tell us about yourself?

Hmm… I guess it depends on the context. I view myself as a tinkerer, a hacker. I’m naturally curious about the world… Sometimes I write short stories. Lately I’ve started learning the Harmonica.

Can you tell us again what you study and why you decided to study your discipline?

The official program is called Computer Engineering. It’s a mix of Computer Science (CS) and Electrical Engineering (EE). Originally, I was planning on doing CS because I’ve always been interested in technology. But once I got to the Technion, I discovered they had a dual CS+EE program. I figured it would be worthwhile learning about the hardware and not just the software, so I made the switch. Currently I’m specializing in Signal Processing and Machine Learning.

Whenever the semester allowed, I took extra courses from the Physics faculty. I’ve taken about 5 of the 9 mandatory courses there I think.

My philosophy is - if we’re coming to Technion, we’re coming to get an education. We should push ourselves and maximize our time here and the resources we have available to us.

Is there something that you want to do when you’re older?

I quite enjoy the notion of doing research. I’ve recently joined a lab in the Chemical Engineering faculty, where we do Computational Chemistry. That’s been really fun. It’s like dipping my toes in the world of research. I think I also like the notion of inventing things and solving problems that benefit others. It’s kind of cliche and generic I know, but it’s true. Even now with the website I’m building - it’s fun to make something that is helpful for others. Maybe I can align my life in that direction.

When we asked Maor how he manages to balance his hobbies with his studies, he told us a story about his former flatmate, who once took 45 credits in a single semester. Maor decided to try 30 credits, and although it was a difficult experience, he learned something important.

It was…one of those moments where you think the world works one way. So you have a notion of what’s possible and what’s not possible… And then suddenly I figured out that this is possible. It helped me reframe my goals and aim much higher.

Maor also told us that it’s not all individual. He explained that what helped him through his difficult studies was his study partners and his friends. They helped one another and formed a team to work on their courses effectively.

Now that we had a gist of Maor’s character, we dived deep and asked him to tell us the problem he encountered and his solution.

Over the years I’ve taken a liking to studying in classrooms, especially when the libraries are fully packed. They have desks, Wi-Fi, power sockets, even white-boards! What more do you need? But I would often find myself wasting time wandering around Ullmann or different buildings, looking through all the classrooms and hoping to find an empty one to study in. And if I did find a free spot, an hour later, a course would start there so I’d have to leave.

StudySpot.cc can tell students which classrooms are currently empty, which are busy and will be empty later in the day, and also operating hours of all Technion libraries. The site updates automatically throughout the day so the information is always up-to-date.

How did you create it?

It’s an idea I had for a long time actually. A couple years ago I made myself a very basic Python script but I pretty much forgot about it. Until recently when

I noticed how good AI tools are becoming. So I was curious to see if I could “vibe-code” a website around this idea - and it worked!

I’ll just explain that “vibe-coding” is a term for where you prompting an LLM with the idea, and it just does all the actual coding for you.

I used MagicPatterns.com for the initial design, and then downloaded the source code and used Claude to iterate over it until I was satisfied.

Maor launched the website in late December 2025, two weeks before the interview. We asked him how many people had been using the website. The results were stunning.

How many people use the website?

It ranges from 60 to 300, but honestly, I don’t know how many of those visitors are real people and how many are bots. The website even logged visitors from Hong-Kong and Korea! No idea how they found out about it…

Wow.

I noticed that in the morning, around 09:00, there’s usually a spike in activity. I guess people want to know if the library is open and stuff. It really brings me joy that I made something that is of service to people.

To conclude, we asked Maor how he saw the future. He told us he’d like to see himself in research.

Research and development sounds very interesting. Or even to be like some researchers here in the Technion, where they dive into a niche subject for a couple months, learn all they can about it, discover something new, publish some articles, and then continue onto more subjects. I like that idea of discovering a new world each time and using our skills to solve diverse sets of problems.

Our conversation afterwards perhaps naturally drifted to AI and its implications for our future. In particular, we discussed Isaac Asimov’s short sci-fi story, The Last Question. In which some humans asked an advanced computer a question, leading ever evolving computers to search for an answer before the universe fades into darkness.

When I use AI these days, especially when I was vibe-coding StudySpot, it got me thinking about Asimov’s “The Last Question”. I’m reminded of those two technicians who are querying the supercomputer for answers about all the hard questions, while they just chit-chat amongst themselves. So the computer is doing all the hard-stuff and they’re just prompting it with questions. And I’m wondering to myself if that’s where we’re heading?

But maybe there’s an alternative, more positive path. As AI technology improves, it frees up more of our time to work on what we really care about, and to also think about the more meaningful things in life. These are powerful tools. I get the feeling it’s a double-edged sword:

They can be wielded to improve ourselves, and make the world a better place. Or they can be used for the opposite purpose. But I’m hopeful, and I believe in our creative ability to solve whatever problems we’ll face.