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Inspiration
For over a year, the idea of creating a challenge app for my children had been in my mind. I wanted to build something that would encourage them to interact with the world around them in a fun way. My first attempt, a web application featuring a star map to unlock challenges, never truly took off. I quickly abandoned it; the concept didn't feel right. As a DevOps professional, I was confident in my ability to build a secure and scalable infrastructure, but my frontend development skills were basic. With the recent advancements in AI, which I've been increasingly using in my daily work, I felt empowered to give it another shot. At the beginning of this summer, the idea had matured: it would be a mobile app, and instead of just completing tasks, my children would be able to collect creatures by winning real-world challenges.
What it does
"Challenge Monster" presents children with real-world challenges, like building a house of cards, creating a shelter for a pet, or designing a mandala with items found in the garden. To complete a challenge, the user must take a picture of their creation directly through the app. An AI then validates whether the challenge has been successfully completed. Our 10 unique creatures offer a total of 100 challenges to accomplish!
How we built it
This project quickly became a family affair. Once I had a working prototype, my wife and children were immediately on board. They became the creative force behind the project, designing all the creature images and carefully crafting and validating each challenge, while I focused on developing the app's features. On the technical side, I built the backend on AWS using a fully serverless architecture. This approach is not only highly secure and scalable but also incredibly cost-effective, as it incurs no infrastructure costs when the app is not in use. For the mobile application itself, I used a Google framework, heavily relying on their AI tools to assist me throughout the development process.
Challenges we ran into
The biggest challenge was undoubtedly the frontend development. My initial failed attempt at a web app had left me feeling discouraged. When I started on the mobile app, the learning curve was steep. There were moments of frustration, especially when dealing with the intricacies of mobile UI/UX and integrating the AI for image recognition. It took countless hours of testing, debugging, and iterating to get the app to a state where it felt polished and intuitive.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
Our greatest accomplishment is taking "Challenge Monster" from a simple idea to a fully published application. We are incredibly proud to have launched the app on both the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store last week. Turning a personal coding challenge into a shared family adventure that is now available to the world is a fantastic feeling. We also quickly put together a landing page for the project at challenge-monster.com
What we learned
The most significant lesson was learning how to collaborate effectively as a family, taking a project from a simple idea all the way to a published product on the app stores. This process was a practical education in itself. We had to navigate all the official rules for app validation, diving deep into the requirements for handling personal data and ensuring the overall security of our application, especially since it's designed for children. It taught us not just about coding and design, but about the responsibility that comes with creating a live product for the public.
What's next for Challenge Monster
Now that the app is live, our primary focus is to grow our player base. We haven't explored marketing yet, so our next challenge is to find effective ways to reach families and children. In parallel, we are planning our first premium features. We'll start by offering an option to remove the in-app ads, followed by introducing new, paid themed-level packs to expand the "Challenge Monster" universe and provide more fun for our players.
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