TLink

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  School detail page

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  Student row component

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  Bob's grade retrieved with chainlink. Uh-oh, no reward for Bob

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  School index

The Inspiration and Story Behind TLink

TLink was inspired by my own experience as a student and teacher, and a passion for education. As a student it was never entirely clear how to apply my education in the real world. "Why do we need to know this?" was the common rejoinder among many students, and teachers never offered up much of a solution. I felt that my skills in math and programming were not valued by my superiors, and until this very moment went entirely to waste. Communication between student, parent, and teacher was often non-existent, and when it came time to enter the workforce, there was no pathway laid out.

Entering the Real World

I decided to follow another passion of mine, music performance. I graduated with a masters from Northwestern University, where I also taught, before holding a long-time faculty position at Columbia College Chicago. After producing a fairly successful act, I went on tour and landed in San Francisco, where I started my own music school. I found that, like myself as a child, kids were not motivated to practice, and often wasted their lessons. When I became very busy, it was not always easy to efficiently communicate students' progress to their parents. That is where TLink comes in.

How and What Exactly

I created a mock api json posted to ipfs, and created a Chainlink job to return uint256 values. I use Hardhat for development. For the front end I used React, and Next for routing. As mentioned, my API was made visible using ipfs.

The User Experience

Students and parents can check their test results when teachers update the API, and if the grade is above the threshold, their reward is transferred directly to their account.

Challenges I Ran Into

I am not very experienced with JavaScript and the front-end, so I am spending a lot of time debugging the front-end.

Accomplishments That I'm Proud of

Getting my Chainlink oracle to fetch data from the json on ipfs feels like magic.

What I Learned

I have become extremely familiar with Chainlink, Ethereum, and Solidity, and have gotten much better with JavaScript, React, and Next.

What's Next for TLink

This is only one small part of a much larger project called School'd. Three separate DAO's will be formed, a school board DAO, parent DAO, and student DAO. Rather than lectures, teachers will upload video content for kids to complete. This is a far more efficient way of learning. The three DAO's will perform a checks and balances in order to hold all three accountable. NFT's will be minted for students reaching certain benchmarks, which will allow them access to companies requiring their certifiable skills. The process will not be categorized by age, but by demonstrated ability.

Built With

• chainlink
• ethereum
• hardhat
• ipfs
• javascript
• next
• pinata
• react
• remix
• solidity