Focus Me Senpai

Inspiration

We looked at existing Chrome extension which blocked certain websites (Facebook, Reddit, etc.) to help keep you productive. We wanted to use blockchain/smart contracts to incentivize you to stay productive rather than coerce you.

What it does

Sponsors can pledge to pay you with certain rules on the condition that you don't visit banned sites for an hour. We have a Chrome extension that pings a server to keep track of continuous durations in which you are productive. After successfully finishing the hour, the server executes the queued transactions to pay you!

The big vision is to add some control to jobs that get paid by the hour (like hiring lawyers)

Only the backend is fully functional.

How I built it

We use a stdlib backend to handle routes and a Redis store to manage user state. The Ark Go package is how we execute transactions.

Challenges I ran into

We mostly struggled with time.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

We're proud of successfully being able to queue up transactions and conditionally post them to the Ark blockchain! The backend is fully functional and the service would be a complete product if there were a frontend to hit the endpoints.

What I learned

Working with Ark was an extremely valuable opportunity to learn more about blockchain technology. Stdlib was also thoroughly enjoyable to use and great to learn over the course of the weekend.