SimplyGraph

Inspiration

The new SAT format includes the Desmos graphing calculator attached to the platform. However, usually students struggle with using said calculator due to its complexity. This calculator can be used to solve every single problem on the SAT Math section. Therefore, it has become an important skill in studying for the SAT. Additionally, many students don’t have the resources to be able to learn about and afford SAT Tutoring that may benefit them and make a difference in their college applications and futures. We hope to reduce that divide between rich and poor and allow equal opportunity for everyone through our program.

What it does

SimplyGraph allows students to have an integrated SAT Desmos tool, to be able to simulate a real testing environment. Not only does SimplyGraph include the Desmos calculator in its problem set, it also allows students to ask the Chat AI Questions to learn about the mistakes they make as well as receive hints about any step of the process where they may have gone wrong. Not only can students learn from these hints, they can also ask their own questions to the bot to allow higher level learning.

How we built it

SimplyGraph was built using a modern stack; the frontend uses React, TypeScript, and ShadCN UI. The backend includes the AWS Lambda Function, API gateway which is connected to the AWS Aurora and RDS for problems, and stats. We used AWS Cognito with Googl Sign-In for Authentication. We also involved the AI Tutor which has GPT generated responses to the questions asked by the user. Our design includes a combination of Canva and Figma for prototyping and finalizing our website appearance.

Challenges we ran into

We had difficulty integrating both the Desmos and the AI into our program, making sure the program ran consistently, Authentication, creating the MPC for the AI integration, and combining the AWS services such as Cognito, Lambda, RDS, and API gateway to work seamlessly.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are very proud of finishing this project and having something to show for our 36 hours of hard work and determination. We are proud to have integrated Desmos into our learning platform, giving AI generated Step-by-Step hints for the student to be able to learn sequentially, and create a reward system using a progress bar in the dashboard to motivate our users to continue learning for SAT Math. We are also proud of being able to integrate the robust AWS-backed infrastructure into our program in the short time-frame.

What we learned

We learned how to use the AWS infrastructures to seamlessly create and run our program. We also learned about Lambda Functions and their use in creating the backend. We also learned about study techniques that can not only assist us in the future but also allow us to expand our platform to adhere to different study techniques such as the Forgetting Curve, Active Recall, etc.

What's next for SimplyGraph

We hope to allow one-on-one conversation with SimplyGraphAI to guide our students to their solution but also allow them to clear up any questions they may have had throughout the solving process. We also hope to integrate a Desmos tutorial mode that walks the student through the solution process all on Desmos, allowing them to kinesthetically learn how to use Desmos. This way the student experiences how to do each problem on Desmos, increasing their learning capacity.