FocusIQ

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When user's brain is fatigued and at the same question for more than 30 seconds it will pop up an AI driven Hint for the question
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When user gets distracted, like suddenly pick up his phone, his brain waves will go low and the device will start beeping and alert on app
How it looks like!

Inspiration 💡

5,000+ test centers in Vietnam. Millions of students grinding 3-hour SATs, IELTS, TOEFL. Every platform measures right or wrong. Nobody asks: was the student even paying attention? We wanted to crack open that black box 🧠

What it does 🎯

FocusIQ reads your brainwaves in real time and adapts your study session.

🔔 Focus dropping? Instant alert
🧩 Fatigued? AI serves easier questions + hints
😴 Cooked? Smart break based on your actual bio-rhythm

Stick it on. Connect Bluetooth. Study smarter.

How we built it 🔧

ECG electrodes from Shopee 🛒 → Raspberry Pi Pico running FFT → BLE → Web app that classifies brain power into Focused (>26%), Fatigued (13-25%), or Unfocused (<12%) → OpenAI Codex powers the adaptive AI tutor.

Oh and we flew a 3D printer from Singapore ✈️🇸🇬 and borrowed filament from the organizers. Total hardware cost: ~250k VND ($10 USD) 💸

Challenges we ran into 😤

The Pico has 264KB of RAM. FFT needs sample buffers. BLE needs its own stack. Running both at once? Constant crashes. We spent hours squeezing buffer sizes, reducing FFT resolution, and staggering memory access so they wouldn't collide.

Codex came in clutch 🙌 helping us debug memory allocation and optimize the FFT to actually fit. Without it we'd still be reading crash logs.

Also: sourcing electronics on Shopee express at midnight in HCMC was a vibe 📦

Accomplishments that we're proud of 🏆

Full closed-loop neural pipeline built at a hackathon. Real signals, real classification, real adaptation
The moment someone picked up their phone and the focus score tanked live on screen ⚡
$10 hardware bill
Brought a 3D printer on a plane. Yes, really.