KX

Inspiration

KX was inspired by the frustration many beginners feel when learning to code for the first time. For secondary school students aged 13 to 17, online resources are often overwhelming, fragmented, and assume prior knowledge. Instead of feeling curious or excited, students feel lost and discouraged. We were also motivated by the persistent gender gap in tech, where lack of early confidence and exposure prevents many students, especially girls, from exploring STEM. We wanted to create something that makes coding feel friendly, fun, and achievable from the very first interaction.

What it does

KX is an LLM powered RPG style desktop game that teaches coding through gameplay. The AI acts as a mentor that explains basic programming concepts, asks adaptive questions, and gives personalised feedback. Players must apply what they learn to progress in the game by answering coding questions correctly to dodge attacks or defeat enemies. Learning is interactive, personalised, and directly tied to in game success.

How we built it

For this hackathon, we focused on building a clear and functional prototype to demonstrate our concept. We created our game prototype using Tiled, a 2D level editor, to design the RPG style map, environments, and interactions. This allowed us to visualise how players would move through the game world, encounter enemies, and trigger learning moments. By prototyping first, we ensured the experience felt like a game rather than a traditional learning app, and that educational interactions could naturally fit into gameplay.

Challenges we ran into

One of our biggest challenges was deciding on the right problem to focus on. We had many ideas across education, gamification, and AI, and were initially spoilt for choice. Narrowing our scope required us to repeatedly revisit the competition requirements, assess feasibility, and ask ourselves where we could create the most meaningful impact within the time given. This process took time but ultimately helped us arrive at a more focused and realistic solution.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud of developing a strong, well thought out plan that we are genuinely passionate about. Instead of rushing into building features, we took the time to deeply understand the problem, define our target users clearly, and design a solution that aligns with real learning needs. Having a clear vision and direction gives us confidence that KX is worth building and improving beyond this hackathon.

What we learned

Through this project, we learned that confidence and engagement are critical drivers of learning. Gamification alone is not enough without personalisation and thoughtful design. We also learned how to integrate LLMs responsibly as teaching assistants, and how to design systems that adapt to users rather than forcing users to adapt to the system.

What's next for KX

The next step for KX is to get our hands dirty and start building. We plan to implement the game using Python and pygame, integrate LLM functionality for personalised teaching and feedback, and translate our prototype into a working application. From there, we aim to test, iterate, and refine the experience to ensure it is both educational and engaging for beginner learners.

Built With

• python