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Upload your pdf and wait for your flashcards to generate!
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Inspiration
Imagine studying for certain topics that require you to memorize information. Such is the life of medical school students, law students, and students at all ages and in all disciplines. Flash cards are essential for the memory of many terms. In school, you have other assignments, tests, and exams to study for on top of all these terms you need to memorize. So how are you going to find the time to create these flashcards AND memorize them AND fit everything else in?
What if you also wanted to learn something new? Maybe learn some fast facts or delve deeper into it? It takes time to learn new things, but it also takes time to find good resources and make them interactive.
Everyone has these problems at one point or another, whether it be the student trying to cram for exams, or the curious mind wanting to be more connected to the local community. The common idea is quick and interactive flashcards can make all the difference in learning efficiently and enjoyably.
What it does
With a simple pdf upload you can generate any number of flashcards you need based on the information uploaded. There is also an option to enter a subject you'd like to learn about, specifics about the subject, and the number of flashcards you'd like to be generated... and boom, a set of flashcards on that subject will be there for you.
How we built it
We used OpenAI to generate the outputted information and scan pdf documents. It was also used to scour the web for credible information when a user entered a topic they wanted to learn about. To implement the user interface and support the core features of our minimum viable product, we utilized HTML/CSS and JavaScript code with Vue and TailwindCSS in the front end. Meanwhile, the backend leveraged Node, Flask and Python to facilitate advanced API calls to and from OpenAI and process data efficiently for frontend rendering.
Challenges we ran into
The project faced several challenges concerning frontend, backend, and design. The integration of frontend with backend took a significant amount of time, and multiple design iterations were necessary to achieve the final layout for the frontend. We frequently broadened our design objectives to incorporate fresh concepts into our design documents for eventual implementation. Nonetheless, this invariably extended the development timeline, and compelled our team to work tirelessly to produce a fully functional MVP.
Overall, the most difficult part of the project was deciding between great project ideas that we would be able to create an MVP for with just the 2 of us.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
- It was the first time the two of us have worked together so there were many things to figure out at the very start, but we managed to complete all the features in our MVP.
- All of this was done over the last 36 hours! This was by far the most complete project that served a great purpose, and we hope to expand on it further in the future to support our fellow students and learners.
What we learned
- We learned a lot about the idea generating process. As much of the first day was spent on organizing our ideas and really thinking about a problem that could be solved.
- We also learned a lot about integrating the frontend and backend components together. Vue and Tailwind were newer to one of our members so it was definitely a great learning experience for the next time its used!
- Lastly, we learned how to optimize our pitching strategy, with such a short amount of time, we had to ensure our presentation included all the necessary information and was flawless throughout.
What's next for Flash Cards Not Me
Next steps would be number crunching. We can definitely leverage some stats into the flashcards such as time spent on a card or number of cards gone through in a session. This can all be optimized and presented to the user so that they can better understand their own strengths and weaknesses.
We also aspire to integrate a database such as Firebase or MongoDB into our program to enable user data storage and website membership, as many critical features depend on a data storage system to store their flashcards. Our goal is to accomplish this as soon as possible.
Furthermore, we intend to conduct extensive research, including user research and market research, to enhance our understanding of the industry and target audiences. We hope to uncover valuable insights and identify areas for improvement to create a successful product.
We are delighted with this project and hope that you share our enthusiasm for it!
Some Economics
Monetization: Paid content: Offering premium content or additional features to users who purchase a subscription can generate revenue, but it can also alienate casual users who are unwilling to pay. Affiliate marketing: Partnering with other businesses and receiving a commission for sales generated from the website can be a great way to monetize the website without alienating users, but it requires a lot of effort to properly manage affiliates. Licensing model: This strategy would involve selling licenses for the product to businesses or organizations that want to use it for their own presentations. The downside to this is that it may not generate as much revenue as other monetization strategies, and it may also limit the number of users that are willing to pay for the product.
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