Inspiration
We noticed that kids often want expensive items, like new sneakers or games, but don’t know how to save for them; we built Wishlist Warden to turn "finding money" into a mission by showing how small daily habit changes, like skipping a snack, can lead to big rewards.
What it does
Wishlist Warden is an AI-powered savings coach that analyzes a user's "small spends" and calculates three specific "speed lanes"—The Turtle, The Rabbit, and The Warden—to show exactly how many weeks it will take to reach a financial goal based on different levels of saving effort.
How we built it
We used Google AI Studio to develop the logic engine, Python and Streamlit for the web interface, and the Gemini 1.5 Flash API to process user data and generate personalized motivational "Persuasion Pitches" for parents.
Challenges we ran into
The biggest challenge was refining our Prompt Engineering to ensure the AI provided realistic, healthy financial advice for middle schoolers rather than suggesting impossible saving methods, and we had to debug the JSON data flow between the frontend and the AI.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We are proud of creating a tool that translates complex financial data into a fun, gamified experience for our peers, especially the feature that generates a script to help kids explain their financial responsibility to their parents.
What we learned
We learned how to integrate large language models into a functional app, the importance of user-centric design in fintech, and that the best way to save money is to visualize the "trade-offs" of every dollar spent.
What's next for Wishlist Warden
We plan to add a Chore-to-Cash integration where users can log completed household tasks to earn "boosts" toward their goals and a social "Savings Squad" feature to let friends encourage each other's progress.
Log in or sign up for Devpost to join the conversation.