Nina - Your Mental Inbox

Inspiration

You know when.. you know you are going to forget something. Yea dont. Use Nina. Narrate said thought into a savable audio. Parse through it like a library afterwards.

What it does

We help people not forget things. We help people not worry about memorizing things. We help people get over the fear of missed opportunity. Just narrate your thought, we store it. Pick them up whenever you want. DB of thoughts

How we built it

• Expo (React Native) for the iOS app frontend
• FastAPI for the backend
• Groq API for the speech-to-text transcription and analyzing stored thoughts to find the most relevant ones to a user's query
• Local SQLite database to store and retrieve thoughts ## Challenges we ran into
• Parsing Groq's responses: the model's output was often unpredictable and inconsistent, making it difficult to enforce a reliable message structure even with clear formatting instructions
• Implementing effective search: we spent significant time experimenting with ChromaDB's similarity search to find relevant "thoughts" from a database, but couldn't achieve good accuracy. Eventually we settled with using Groq to scan all stored thoughts, which works but can introduce hallucinations as the database of thoughts grows
• Debugging app behavior: with multiple asynchronous components interacting, diagnosing where issues originated was challenging ## Accomplishments that we're proud of A few areas where Nina innovates is its UI accessibility and search framework. With future goals of integrating across Apple’s ecosystem, Nina aims to be one click away from the closest device listening to the user’s voice. The minimalist design makes users feel productive, lack of button further emphasizing the core function of recording thoughts.

For the search framework, we chose Groq because it's uniquely optimized for real-time speech-to-text and search that use both keywords and context workflows. Its low-latency voice API lets us transcribe audio with almost no delay; crucial for creating a frictionless, live-search experience.

What we learned

• How to use and integrate Groq API into our project
• The importance of clear communication and coordination in a team
• How to estimate task complexity and deadlines more realistically ## What's next for Nina - Your Mental Inbox
• Optimize the "Search Your Thoughts" feature with ChromaDB's similarity search to improve relevance and reduce hallucinations as the number of stored thoughts grows
• Add capabilities for Nina to perform actions, such as writing emails or booking dinners directly through user commands, which will expand Nina into a true personal assistant that can not only remember and understand your thoughts but also take actions on your behalf

Built With

• fastapi
• groq
• react-native