Set Your Sites

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  Instructional Poster

Our Product

We’ve all been there—you have a mountain of tasks to tackle, but somehow, hours slip away as you fall down the rabbit hole of random YouTube videos.

That’s why we set out to transform generic screen timer tools into something smarter and more effective. With the power of AI, our extension allows you to create your very own accountability buddy to help you stay on track.

Want Michael Scott cheering (or chastising) you? Or maybe you’d prefer the unrelenting presence of Voldemort? The choice is yours—the sky’s the limit!

Try to cast them aside, and they’ll leave you alone… for now. Keep in mind, each time you do so your buddy will get a little more… insistent.

During the brainstorming phase, we set out to create something both fun and functional. Our goal was to make screen timers more engaging and effective. To fit the time constraints of nwHacks, we focused this prototype on the browser.

Our tool is available as a Google Chrome extension. It allows you to set screen time limits for all those addictive websites and customize your experience by describing your ideal accountability buddy. When your time is up, your buddy will (not so kindly) nudge you to move on to more productive activities.

We wanted to make it harder to ignore screen time limits while giving users a fun and lighthearted experience. Say goodbye to disappointment when your screen time ends—because now you’ll have a quirky companion to lighten the mood!

Through this process, our team had the opportunity to create a Chrome extension for the first time, working with Ollama, JavaScript, HTML, and CSS. We also learned how to debug directly in the browser using developer tools and how to integrate a local AI agent into the application.

Ready to take control of your time? Try it out and set your sites on a better, more productive you!

Challenges

• Had to do a lot of trial and error to find the CSS styling that works for us
• Message generation requests piled up if one took just slightly too long
• Troubleshooting CORS issues with Ollama
• Merging many versions of the same file was chaotic and sometimes lead to mistakes

Accomplishments

• This was the first time implementing chrome extensions for all members of our team
• We were able to make a fun, practical, functional and fairly robust application within the time constraints.
  • Effectively limiting the scope to implement a MVP
• We succeeded at substantially changing the behaviour of a language model to fit our purposes
• We did a good job of breaking up large tasks continuously to stay on top of the project throughout the 24 hours
• We adapted to recognize obstacles and adapt throughout the development cycle

Lessons Learned

• Use Chrome web API
• Build a fully functional web application running on Krispy Kremes and no sleep
• NOT drink a whole can of energy drink when you never drink tea or coffee. Shaky hands don’t type too well.
• NOT sleep in your car in January or bring a sleeping bag if you do
• Design applications of AI for the improvement of mental health and productivity
• Implement an asynchronous event-driven system design

Coming Soon

• Use GenAI to display or animate your accountability buddy of choice
• Use GenAI to readout screen time prompts in the character's voice
• Use facial monitoring to analyze content that is deemed persistently triggering or distressing to the viewer, prompting them to put away the content.
  • Example: violent, stressful or abusive content
• Add support for other web browsers (Safari, Firefox) and mobile apps.

Built With

• chromeapi
• css
• html
• javascript
• ollama