LearnLens

Inspiration

The inspiration for LearnLens came from a universal frustration: learning shouldn't feel like a struggle.

We've all experienced it—staring at a dense 50-page PDF, wondering where to even begin. Traditional studying often involves passive reading, hoping information sticks. But research shows that active learning—questioning, summarizing, and testing yourself—is far more effective.

The problem? Creating summaries, flashcards, and quizzes manually takes hours. Most students don't have that kind of time.

We asked ourselves:

What if AI could transform any document into an interactive learning experience—instantly?

That question became LearnLens: an AI-powered platform that turns static study materials into dynamic, personalized tutoring sessions.

What it does

LearnLens is an AI-powered tutoring platform that transforms any study material into an interactive learning experience. Users can upload PDFs, Word documents, paste text, or start a free research session on any topic. The AI then generates smart summaries, interactive mind maps, personalized quizzes with adjustable difficulty, glossaries, flashcards, and structured study plans. Users can also chat with an AI tutor that understands the context of their materials to get instant explanations and answers to their questions 24/7. Additionally, learners can publish their materials to a community explore page, discover content from others, and export their learning progress as PDF reports.

How we built it

We built LearnLens as a full-stack web application using Next.js 16 with React 19 for the frontend and Express.js with TypeScript for the backend. The frontend uses Tailwind CSS v4 for styling and xyflow/react for rendering interactive mind map visualizations. On the backend, we use Prisma ORM with MySQL for data persistence and JWT with bcrypt for secure user authentication. File uploads are handled by Multer, supporting PDF and Word document parsing. For AI capabilities, we integrated Gemini 3 Flash through the OpenAI-compatible SDK. We created a centralized prompt engineering system that supports 10 languages and ensures the AI stays grounded in the user's uploaded material to prevent hallucinations.

Challenges we ran into

The biggest challenge was ensuring AI accuracy and preventing hallucinations. Early versions would sometimes make up facts not present in the source material. We solved this by implementing strict priority rules in our prompts that force the AI to use only the provided content as its primary source. Another challenge was rendering mind maps beautifully. The initial AI-generated node structures resulted in chaotic layouts with overlapping nodes. We implemented a custom layered tree layout algorithm to position nodes radially with balanced spacing.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We're proud of building a comprehensive learning platform that genuinely helps users understand complex materials faster. The multi-language support covering 10 languages makes LearnLens accessible to learners worldwide. Our prompt engineering system ensures consistent, high-quality AI outputs across all features. The mind map visualization turned out to be a standout feature that users love for understanding relationships between concepts. We're also proud of the community explore feature that allows learners to share and discover study materials, creating a collaborative learning environment. The entire application has a polished, modern UI with smooth animations and responsive design.

What we learned

We learned that AI prompts require the same rigor as code—they need careful design, iteration, and centralized management. Keeping all prompts in a single file made maintenance and improvements much easier. We also learned that grounding AI responses in source material is essential for building user trust. When the AI made up facts, users lost confidence in the entire platform. User experience matters more than feature count—simplifying the flow to generate value with fewer clicks dramatically improved engagement. Finally, we learned that visual learning tools like mind maps are highly valued by users, especially those who struggle with traditional text-heavy studying.

Built With

• gemini
• multer
• next.js
• prisma
• react
• tailwind.css
• typescript