Sakura Assistant

Dressing Room
Character Collection
Dressing Room (Customizable)
Settings
Focus Mode
Distraction Detected (Focus Mode)
Gacha Results
Tasks/Planning
Default Screen
Chat Logs
Gacha Banner
Background Catalog

Inspiration

Sometimes we all need someone to keep us on track. Standard productivity tools can feel cold and purely functional, missing the warmth and fun that actually keep us coming back. We created Sakura Assistant to offer a caring anime companion who talks with you, keeps you focused, and motivates you through game-like focus sessions where finishing real tasks earns Sakura Petals.

What it does

Sakura Assistant is an AI-powered desktop anime companion that works as both a friendly partner and a daily productivity coach. It manages tasks, schedules and notes through natural text and voice conversation, scolds you when a distracting app opens during focus sessions, and rewards progress with summons, outfits, mini games, goals and a personalized feed.

How we built it

We built Sakura Assistant using Python and Google Gemini for conversational intelligence, engineering custom system prompts so each character keeps a consistent anime persona while adding quests and scheduling sessions. For voice, we integrated ElevenLabs text-to-speech, speech-to-text and sound effects, giving nine characters expressive English and Japanese voices. To establish a distinct visual style, we built 3D characters in VRoid Studio and a game-style interface with three.js.

Challenges we ran into

We faced several challenges during development, starting with prompt engineering so each character stayed warm and in persona without sacrificing reliability when adding quests or scheduling sessions. Minimizing voice latency was another major focus, so we split replies into sentences and saved every generated line to keep the path from Gemini's text to ElevenLabs' audio feeling responsive. Finally, running 3D characters, painted backgrounds and summon animations smoothly on a laptop's built-in graphics.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We successfully built a working desktop app that blends expressive voice synthesis, responsive LLM conversation, and 3D characters into one cohesive experience. We are especially proud of the focus mode that actually closes distracting apps, the cinematic 3D summon scenes, and a reward loop where real work, not real money, unlocks new characters, outfits and backgrounds, in both English and Japanese.

What we learned

We learned how to design prompts that keep AI character personas consistent while they take real actions inside an app. We also gained hands-on experience connecting Gemini and ElevenLabs to reduce waiting time, plus strategies for making 3D characters, painted artwork and a game-style interface run smoothly together.

What's next for Sakura Assistant

We aim to expand its productivity capabilities by adding hands-free voice conversation and deeper integrations with tools like Google Calendar, Notion, and Discord for seamless planning and automated scheduling.