LabStocker

The problem

Before I studied computer science, I spent two years working in a chemistry research lab. A lot of the work depended on simple things going right: knowing which reagents were available, where they were stored, who had used them, whether they were expired, and when new materials needed to be ordered.

That sounds administrative, but in a lab it affects everything. A missing reagent can stall an experiment. Poor visibility can lead to waste. Incorrect storage can create safety risks. And when the system is mostly spreadsheets, memory, and informal coordination, the lab becomes harder to run as more students, professors, and projects depend on the same materials.

LabStocker came from that frustration. I wanted to build a real inventory system for chemistry labs — one that treated reagents, safety, usage, and purchasing as connected parts of the same workflow.

What I built

LabStocker started as a Java desktop application and later expanded into a cloud-based web platform for managing chemical reagents and laboratory inventory.

The system tracked reagents, lots, quantities, expiration dates, storage locations, users, responsible parties, loans, returns, and compatibility groups for safer chemical storage. It also included dashboards and reports for stock levels, usage patterns, and early predictive reorder planning.

The goal was not only to catalog chemicals, but to help a lab make better decisions: reduce waste, avoid running out of critical materials, improve safety practices, and plan purchases with more context.

Research and recognition

Under the guidance of Prof. Roberto Lima, LabStocker became both a software project and a chemistry research project — eventually presented at national conferences and recognized among Brazil’s top student chemistry projects.

In 2015, the project returned as LabStocker.com, a web platform for reagent management. That version emphasized productivity, waste reduction, safer storage through compatibility groups, cost planning, dashboards, statistical consumption forecasts, and simultaneous access across desktop, tablet, and smartphone devices.

The project was also recognized among the top three Brazilian student chemistry projects at the National Brazilian Chemistry Congress in 2015 and 2016.

Business prototype

LabStocker also became my first experience thinking about software as a product, not just an application.

Together with two classmates, Amanda Myris and Bruno Valniery, I worked on business creation and development around the platform: who the users were, how laboratories might adopt it, how different institutions could have customized versions, and how a technical tool could become a service for schools, universities, and research labs.

That part mattered. It was the first time I saw engineering, user needs, research, and product strategy meet in the same project.

Engineering depth

Looking back, LabStocker was my first real systems project.

It forced me to think beyond screens and forms: relational data modeling, permissions, shared state across clients, reporting, forecasting with sparse historical data, and the boundaries between storage, business logic, and presentation.

It also taught me that useful software often starts from a very concrete pain. I had lived the lab problem myself, so the system was not abstract. It came from watching real people lose time, duplicate work, misplace materials, and make purchasing decisions without enough data.

Much of how I think about software today started here: understand the workflow, model the domain carefully, make the system legible, and build tools that help people make better decisions.