Tashi's Tibetan Adventure

Inspiration

Many Tibetan children growing up abroad have limited exposure to the Tibetan language. Learning new vocabulary can feel difficult and repetitive, so we wanted to create something that makes learning Tibetan interactive, visual, and fun. This inspired us to build Tashi’s Tibetan Adventure.

What it does

Tashi helps children learn Tibetan vocabulary through everyday objects. Children can use the camera to identify an object, learn its Tibetan word, listen to its pronunciation, trace Uchen characters, practice simple sentences, and play learning games such as Treasure Hunt. We also designed an NFC-based physical toy experience to connect digital learning with the real world.

How we built it

We built Tashi as a mobile-first Progressive Web App using React, TypeScript, Vite, and Tailwind CSS. FastAPI powers the backend, while Gemini is used for object recognition and sentence generation. Firebase handles authentication, database, and storage, and Monlam provides Tibetan text-to-speech.

Challenges we ran into

One of the challenges we faced was integrating the Monlam Dictionary API for English-to-Tibetan translation. During testing, the dictionary API occasionally returned errors, and some English words did not have corresponding Tibetan translations available. To ensure the translation feature worked reliably , we used Monlam’s LLM as an alternative. In the future, if the Monlam Dictionary API provides more complete vocabulary coverage and stable responses, we plan to use it as the primary source for verified Tibetan translations.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud of building a complete learning flow and successfully designing the platform around Tibetan language accuracy rather than treating AI as the source of truth, while creating an experience that is engaging and accessible for children.

What we learned

We learned about API limitations, PWA development, Firebase, Tibetan TTS, AI-based image recognition, and integrating hardware concepts such as NFC and ESP32 into a software project.

What's next for Tashi's Tibetan Adventure

We want to add more learning levels, objects, games, and sentence activities, improve the AI recognition experience, and fully connect the NFC toys and ESP32 speaker. Ultimately, we want Tashi to grow into a fun and accessible platform that helps Tibetan children learn their language, connect with their culture, and enjoy the process along the way.