Peckish

Inspiration

We built Peckish because revision often feels passive: students read notes, highlight them, and hope the knowledge sticks. We wanted to flip that around. Instead of asking students to simply consume information, Peckish asks them to teach it back.

How We Built It

We built Peckish with Django, using server-rendered templates, SQLite, vanilla JavaScript, and custom CSS.

Gemini is used to generate study notes, split content into concepts, create revision resources, and evaluate student explanations. The app stores sessions, teaching attempts, fossils, XP, learning profiles, and generated resources in the database.

Challenges We Faced

One challenge was making AI feedback feel helpful without simply giving the answer away. Peckish needed to act like a curious learner, not a strict examiner, so we tuned the feedback to include what the student got right, what was missing, and a gentle next question.

Another challenge was making fossil cards useful rather than discouraging. We wanted mistakes to feel like learning artifacts, not failures.

We also spent time improving the UI: making flashcards interactive, fixing mind map spacing, replacing irrelevant images with connected idea boxes, and making progress feel rewarding with XP and level animations.