Inspiration
As a student, keeping track of notes, summarizing lectures, and creating flashcards for revision can be time-consuming. We wanted to build a tool that helps students study smarter, not harder, by turning their notes into actionable study material in seconds.
What it does
SmartNotes is an AI-powered study companion that transforms your notes into: • Concise summaries of long texts • Flashcards for quick revision • Mini quizzes to test your understanding
All in one simple, clean interface making it easier for students to absorb and retain information.
How we built it
• Frontend: React + Tailwind CSS + shadcn for a responsive, user-friendly interface
• Backend: Golang (Gin/Fiber) to handle API requests
• AI: OpenAI GPT API for generating summaries, flashcards, and quiz questions
• Storage: localstorage
Users upload notes (PDF, TXT, or copy-paste text), and the AI does the rest.
Challenges we ran into
• Handling varied note formats (PDF, TXT, images) in a way that’s robust and fast
• Designing a clean, intuitive UI for multiple outputs (summary, flashcards, quiz)
• Balancing AI response quality vs speed, generating flashcards and summaries quickly while maintaining accuracy
Accomplishments that we're proud of
• Built a fully functional MVP in 48 hours
• Integrated AI to generate flashcards, summaries, and quizzes automatically
• Created a simple, clean interface that a student can use without any learning curve
What we learned
• How to integrate GPT API with a Golang backend and React frontend
• Best practices for building a full-stack MVP in a short time frame
• The importance of user experience, even AI-powered tools need a simple and clear UI
What's next for smartnotes
• Add persistent user accounts and saved notes
• Support more file types (like images, DOCX, PPT)
• Add multi-language support for international students
• Improve flashcards and quizzes with more interactivity and spaced repetition
Team Members
https://github.com/meszmate (16 years old, solo)
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