Anselm

Inspiration- As a fellow ADHDed, the problems I struggled with the most has been Executive Dysfunction. And this was no longer a personal problem when I realized that other neurodivergents felt the same.

Executive Dysfunction made me feel incapable and questioned my self worth because I was not able to get things done which most of my other peers could do without a hitch. And it was only after getting diagnosed did I realize that it was not me but what wired me. And it affected a lot more people than I could imagine. Regardless of the multitudes of reasons that contribute to Executive Dysfunction, the problem affects us all and while I don't have a magical solution that solves this completely, I have tried to develop a system that can help. The system called Anselm.

What it does- Anselm is an app that is especially for tackling Executive Dysfunction. The app has been designed to ensure everything gets done within deadlines. When we get closer to the deadline with the task unfinished, based on priority order the dashboard glows red, initiating CODE RED- an urgency based system to complete in time. And if missed, Anselm doesn't punish. But with gentleness, helps us from being too hard on ourselves. To top it all of most of this revolves around Ashline AI, the in built AI cat who is our friend. Ashline is the friend who encourages us, motivates us and is there for us. Anselm is Ashline's home.

How we built it- As a beginner, most of my knowledge is still baseline. With the help of AI tools such as ChatGPT and Cursor, along with experimental knowledge and my own baseline knowledge, I was able to create Anselm. Days of debugging and problem solving delved into the structure that is seen today.

Challenges we ran into- Half of the time I spent was for debugging. But one of the major problems was the prompt limit of our AI provider. We had to switch providers to ensure users can experience Ashline well. The other noteworthy problem we ran into was font visibility and readability, since we wanted to ensure the pixel, pastel vibe we were going for but not compromise on readability. We compromised on adjusting font spacing and hope it worked enough.

Accomplishments that we're proud of- Major accomplishment will always be forming the app itself. Regardless of time constraints, being able to bring the app to live is an achievement all on its own. Another achievement which may seem small to many is successfully generating animations out of png for our Ashline AI cat. It was satisfying and fulfilling.

What we learned- Seeking help from AI is not bad. In a world of ignorance and ego, asking for help is not bad. Advocating for yourself and helping yourself should matter and we must strive for it. We must do whatever we can to make the world a bettter place and much more inclusive place.

What's next for Anselm- More journey lands, more structured categories of tasks, more cat companions, design themes, fonts to help those who are dyslexic and much more better suits and interface.

Built With

• ai
• ai-companion
• cats
• cute
• dysfunction
• executive
• executive-dysfunction
• inclusivity
• neurodivergent
• pastel
• pixel
• productivity