Synapse - An Adaptive Study Engine

Introduction Page + Course deck for high school students
Course deck for University students
Option to add/create own deck and see the progress made
Illustrates the "create your own study deck"

Inspiration

Imagine having a study partner who understands your learning style and allows you to overcome the gaps in your learning. Synapse was build exactly to solve this problem. It adapts to each learner's pace, performance, and needs.

What it does

Synapse is an adaptive study engine that personalizes what, when, and how a student studies.

It is divided into two parts:

A student can upload pdf file based on their chosen topic, then Synapse extracts the material and creates structured lessons and practice questions using AI.
Synapse also includes an adaptive study mode that understands the user's learning gaps to decide what they should focus on next. Through the learning decks, the student can learn through teacher mode which introduces them to the concept by providing them the definition, practice example, and a sample quiz question. After learning the concept, the student can test their understanding through practice questions. As the student continues to attempt the questions, Synapse keeps track of the correct and incorrect questions. Synapse identifies the questions student struggles with and allows them to reattempt them through the focus mode to strengthen their understanding.

How we built it

We built Synapse using React 19 and Vite for the construction of the web application and Tailwind CSS was used for the user interface. Next, Gemini 2.5 Flash was utilized to extract concepts and text from the uploaded PDF and create detailed lessons and practice problems for the user.

The SM-2 spaced repetition algorithm, alongside our own tracking system proved beneficial as when a student answered a question correctly or incorrectly, Synapse would update it's understanding based on the response and leads them to focus mode to review the perplexed topics. Moreover, to save student progress, local storage was implemented and to display student performance and their learning patterns, Recharts was used.

Challenges we ran into

The primary challenge we ran into was making Synapse truly an adaptive system rather than a generic teaching system. We had to plan a framework that would track the student's performance, identify the gaps in their learning, and decide what they should review next.

Secondly, the challenge was to extract concept from the PDF files and create study decks. Since each PDF has its own structure, we had to ensure that Synapse could focus on the most important information so students could effectively create meaningful study decks and test their understanding through practice problems.

Lastly, we had to deal with the cohesive structure of Synapse. For instance, the definition, the worked example, and conceptual diagram each conveyed a different message, thus, the challenge was worked and fixed eventually.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud of Synapse, as it turned from a generic study system to an adaptive learning system that responds to each student's performance and learning gaps. It matters to us as it provides students, whether in University or high-school, with a way to effectively study and grasp all the necessary topics that they might be struggling on.

What we learned

We learned that turning curiosity into a tangible solution takes dedication and hard work. Throughout the development of Synapse, we have also learned that how technology can be used to make learning feel personal. Seeing Synapse go from an idea into a cohesive system that adapts to student's learning behaviour really demonstrated the impact that personalized learning can have.
We learned that

What's next for Synapse - An Adaptive Study Engine

Future work for Synapse includes making the framework even more personalized to the student and more accessible. We want to elaborate on Synpase learning the student behaviour even more effectively and lead the student through their weak spots. We also hope to add more courses, both from high school and universities, so that students could have access to their chosen topic and make their learning personalized.