The Laugh Library

The laugh! The universal echo of happiness. Everyone has their own defining laugh - the chuckle, the snortle, the guffaw... The list is endless. That's why I created The Laugh Library.

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Inspiration

A few years ago, me and my family were in Hong Kong. We went to have dinner at a nearby claypot rice restaurant. It was winter: The air was cold, and the food was warm. Me and my brother (I was 12, he was 9) excitedly scraped off the crispy, slightly burnt rice at the bottom of the pot. The world surrounding us was full of laughter. People were happy. It was one of those dinners where anything someone said appeared hilarious, and tears would roll down smiling faces plainly from sheer joy. There were all types of laughter. Chuckles, snorts, guffaws. I thought there should be a way to record these echos of happiness somewhere. Hence, The Laugh Library.

What it does

The Laugh Library is a gallery of recorded and uploaded laughs from around the world. You can upload your own laughs by recording it on the spot and trimming the audio, or upload an audio file, trim it, and upload it to the website. The user can access the public gallery, as well as their own section of personal laughs from themself, their family, friends… It enables people to experience the one truly universal characteristic people from all kinds of backgrounds have. It reminds us that we really aren’t that different.

How we built it

First, I started off with a base by writing up a detailed prompt of the idea to Bolt. I changed the colors, the font, and the layout to what I wanted. There were many kinks to work out. The audio wasn’t working. The uploading system was flawed. As I worked on the website, new features stemmed from the core idea: A map for the user to visualise where each laugh came from; a trimming function; A way to prevent people from uploading audio that is not of laughter, etc. There was so much troubleshooting to do - it took up most of my time. Later on, I created several versions of a logo and found out how to upload it to Bolt.

Challenges we ran into

Making a website using AI means there is going to be a lot of troubleshooting. I wasn't doing the coding myself. One particular challenge was the most frustrating: I couldn't get the animations I liked onto the website. At first, I had AI make these GIFs, but it turns out they suck at creating mouths. I extensively researched "Laughing emoji GIFs" and took nearly an hour to download the ones I wanted. I tried to upload them onto the website, but errors kept popping up. With some help from my dad, I learned that I had to delete the AI's image history to insert a new file. After a few hours, it finally worked. When I saw the GIFs of laughter appear on my screen, I was so happy I laughed.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

I have very little coding experience, and this is my first hackathon, so I'm really proud that I registered for the competition in the first place. I'm also proud that I actually finished the website! When I first had the idea at 12 years old, my father told me it was a great idea, so I held onto the thought for a while, but never did it since I didn't have the coding skill. I'm proud to going from idea --> reality and checking another thing off my mental list.

What we learned

I learned how to create, edit, crop, and upload GIF files to a website through the challenges I wrote about above. Joining this hackathon taught me that it’s not going to be easy to create a simple idea, even with the help of AI. I also learned how to write exactly what I want for Bolt's AI feature - at the start of my hackathon journey, I had a vision but didn’t know how to have AI execute it. My language was foggy and contained many muddled ideas about the website. Now I know how, and I now can say that I’m a vibe coder. I also learned that I have no time management skill (I’m writing this on the 30th of June).

What's next for The Laugh Library

I would add a translation feature so that people from anywhere can truly access The Laugh Library. Also, depending on how the judging goes, I would want to have a section where the user can easily donate money to partnering organisations that solve issues regarding mental health.

Built With

  • 0takes%20themselves%20too%20seriously.
  • https://emojis.directory/?s=laugh#google-vignette
  • https://ezgif.com/remove-background
  • https://giphy.com/search/laughing-emoji
  • https://imageresizer.com/gif-compressor/editor
  • https://www.canva.com/design/dagrnrekdgm/-4ywdzz1j7r-0fujxa5flw/edit?ui=eyjbijp7fx0
  • https://www.freeconvert.com/webp-to-gif
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