Minty: Digital Tooth Fairy

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What it does

Minty gamifies dental hygiene by letting kids increase the value of their teeth through consistent brushing. Using real-time AI-verified brushing via camera, children watch their tooth portfolio grow daily. Parents set custom increment rates through the parent dashboard, controlling how much each verified brush increases tooth value. When a tooth finally falls out, parents pay out based on the 'stock price' the child built through good habits, teaching kids that consistency and healthy routines literally pay off while introducing foundational concepts of investment and compound growth.

Inspiration

We noticed two problems: parents struggle to get kids excited about brushing their teeth, and traditional "tooth fairy" rewards don't incentivize the daily habits, only the end results. We thought: what if we could make dental hygiene as addictive as mobile games, while teaching financial literacy concepts like investment and compound growth? By digitizing the tooth fairy tradition, we're turning a twice-daily chore into an anticipated ritual where consistency literally pays off.

How we built it

We created a plan for the layout and UX/UI in Figma and then created our own assets using a combination of AI generation and digital art in FireAlpaca. Utilizing these assets with Tailwind CSS, allowing us to rapidly prototype and iterate on both the playful kid interface and the professional parent dashboard while maintaining design consistency. We also utilized Next.js, and TypeScript for type safety and robust development. We used PostgreSQL as our database, with Prisma as our ORM for type-safe database queries and seamless schema management. This setup handles user authentication, tooth value tracking and parent-set pricing rules. Prisma's migration system let us iterate quickly on our data model as we refined the tooth economy mechanics. But our core feature is our integration with Google's Gemini Vision API to verify actual brushing, detecting toothbrush presence in user images.

Challenges we ran into

Our biggest technical challenge was integrating payment processing. We initially attempted to work with the Visa API, but encountered some configuration difficulties that were tough to resolve within our limited timeframe. The error messages we received were vague and made it challenging to quickly identify and fix the underlying issues. Given the hackathon's time constraints, we made the decision to pivot to Stripe, which allowed us to move forward and focus on completing our core features. We had really wanted to showcase Visa's payment solutions, but the switch enabled us to deliver a functional product and demonstrate our ability to adapt under pressure.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We're most proud of taking two things that are traditionally hard to teach kids: financial responsibility and healthy habits, and making them genuinely fun. Kids don't (usually) naturally get excited about brushing their teeth or understanding concepts like investment and compound growth. But by combining them into a game where daily brushing literally builds equity, we created something that makes both concepts click intuitively.

What we learned

We learned that constraints breed creativity, being forced to design without our usual tools pushed us to discover entirely new workflows we'll likely use again. We discovered that AI image generation combined with traditional editing can produce professional results, even with just a trackpad. On the technical side, we learned how surprisingly robust vision AI can be when properly prompted. Finally, we learned that building for two completely different users (kids and parents) in one platform requires constant perspective-switching, but results in a more thoughtful, well-rounded product.

What's next for Minty

Next, we want to add social features: family leaderboards, the ability to "gift" tooth value to siblings, and community challenges. As a company, Minty could form partnerships with pediatric dentists who could provide bonus multipliers for checkup verification. We'd also like to expand the concept, what if good grades, completed chores, or other positive behaviors could also boost tooth value? Long-term, we see Minty as a platform for teaching kids that consistent positive habits compound over time, with teeth being just the first use case. We're also exploring a marketplace where kids can spend their earnings on parent-approved rewards or even donate to dental health charities.