big fish

big fish :)

Inspiration

For those who feel like small fish in a big pond.

Everyone has faced imposter syndrome at some point. As underrepresented groups in tech, we are especially familiar with this feeling, growing up or working in places where no one else looks like us. This often holds us back from sharing ideas or going after opportunities.

One way to combat imposter syndrome is through journaling - tracking our thoughts and emotions. But let’s be honest - most of us don’t have the time or consistency to keep a journal. It’s hard to track our own patterns and without realizing it, we may self-sabotage every day. It’s in the way we phrase things, hesitate in conversations, or downplay our own abilities.

That’s why we built Big Fish. We want everyone to embody the “Big Fish” mentality - to believe that you really are the big fish in a pond. But instead of asking you to manually track your thoughts, we analyze something you already do daily - your conversations. And we tell you how you can make them better :O

What it does

Big Fish is a Chrome extension that integrates into your email. As we type an email, Big Fish sends out texts to the Gemini API in real-time. If Big Fish catches a phrase like "I'm not sure about this, but...", our two personas - Whaley and Squidy - immediately pop up.

Character Interaction

Whaley is encouraging and gentle, and Squidy is blunt and empowering. Sometimes, we just need a supportive bestie, and other times, we need a tough-love coach.

Going back to our example: Whaley would say, “hey, its okay to feel unsure sometimes… let’s tackle it together,” and Squidy would say something sassy like, “well, at least you’re self aware! Just kidding! Let’s fix it or own it!”

As you write, Big Fish gives you an "imposter-syndrome" score, where 10 means no indication and 1 is the exact opposite. In your dashboard, you can track your score for the day through a heat-map style chart (like GitHub), that'll turn yellow if it's caught triggers, and green as you write with confidence. Watch it change as you solve imposter syndrome in real time!

How we built it

The tech stack we used includes:

Chrome Extension
Gemini API for real-time sentiment analysis to detect the user’s confidence
JavaScript, HTML, CSS for the UI
Chrome Storage API to track progress
Spline for 3D models of our characters

Challenges we ran into

The main challenge we ran into was getting two characters, Squidy and Whaley, to consistently appear when a trigger is sensed. This was our first time working with Chrome extensions, so getting everything set up was also a bit of a challenge.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We're really proud of creating a product that works! When we first outlined our idea, we were a little worried that it would be too ambitious, so we're really proud that we were able to complete all the functionality.

What we learned

We learned how to use new tools, such as Gemini's API and Chrome extensions, and about the whole process of making an extension, since we were really new to it.