VerbaTeX

Inspiration

As computer science and math students, many of the classes we've taken have required us to use LaTeX - and we all know just how much of a struggle it can be to memorize each and every formula exactly. We knew there had to be a better way, and decided that this weekend would be as good a time as any to tackle this challenge.

What it does

VerbaTeX converts speech to LaTeX code, performs server-side compilation, and renders an image preview in real-time.

How we built it

The web app is built with React, TypeScript, and Flask. Firebase and AWS were used for database management and authentication. A custom fine-tuned ChatGPT API was used for NLP and LaTeX translation.

Challenges we ran into

Although the 32 hours we were given sounded like more than enough at the start, the amount of times we changed plans and ran into bugs quickly made us change our minds.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud of building a fully functional full-stack application in such a short time span. We spent a lot of time and effort trying to meet all of our ambitious goals. We truly felt that we dreamed big at Hack the North 2024.

What we learned

We learned that choosing new and unfamiliar technologies can sometimes be better than sticking to what we're used to. Although none of us had much experience with Defang before Hack the North, we learned about them during workshops and sponsor boothings and were intrigued - and choosing to build our project on it was definitely a good idea!

What's next for VerbaTeX

LaTeX has so many more functionalities that could be simplified through VerbaTeX, from creating anything from diagrams to tables to charts. We want to make even more of these functions accessible and easier to use for LaTeX users all over the world.