EasyRead

Inspiration

EasyRead was a feature we always dreamed of - an effortless way to simplify complex words while reading. We thought it would be amazing to have this as a web app or a Chrome extension to help users read smoothly without interruptions.

What it does

EasyRead makes reading easier by allowing users to double-click on complex words to see a simpler version. If they want to revert, a single click brings back the original word. Additionally, it builds a personal dictionary of all clicked words, helping users track and learn new vocabulary effortlessly.

How we built it

This was our first hackathon and our first experience with web development. We built EasyRead using:

HTML & CSS for the frontend UI/UX
React to make the web app interactive
Node.js for backend processing
OpenAI's API with gpt-4o for linguistic tasks, such as finding simpler word replacements
Dictionary API to find the definition for words

Since we were new to web development, we spent a lot of time researching and experimenting with different implementations.

Challenges we ran into

Building a website from scratch was much harder than we expected. Even basic functionalities took time. HTML & CSS were trickier than they seemed. Integrating OpenAPI required some trial and error to set properly and upgrade Requests Per Minute Rate, but it turned out to be one of the easier parts.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We successfully built a functional prototype of EasyRead. We learned full-stack development (React, Node.js, APIs). We participated in our first hackathon and completed the project! Despite challenges, we created a working tool that can genuinely help people read better.