Inspiration
I always thought that planning a trip was half the fun of going on a trip, for example decades ago before google translate I learned to read a Chinese menu before going to China to make sure that I understand what I eat and learn at least some communication skills to when I'm in remote places. Now that I have kids, I want to inspire them to not only enjoy the trip but learn about the culture, the language and prepare them for the trip before we go.
What it does
Trip Companion is a web/mobile/tv app that lets you choose curated Activities that usually include a learning part or interactive game and end with a quiz that you return to after some lessons to get the benefits of spaced repetition. Activities include learning about foods, culture, transportation and more. They have important words spoken to learn how they sound. Games include Google Street View item hunts that put you in interesting places and that you might even visit.
How we built it
First I brainstormed about the product with the Devpost skill, improving the initial idea into workable steps. Then lots of rounds of coding, self-criticizing and QA by my Opus 5.5 OpenClaw agent. Once a day I would look, critique and give next tasks and main areas to improve, and incorporated ideas it suggested.
Challenges we ran into
A big challenge is that this app is very UI dependent and Opus kept "insisting" on using his very bad vector graphics for a lot of the art and icons. Some were ok, but a lot were just awful, so I had to go over and mark the bad ones and replace with photos or better animations. Also making it run on a tv was a fun challenge that included having Claude connect to it and run calibration with the remote step by step.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
I'm proud of creating something fun that excites me and my kids, and working with AI not only on the code but also on additional artifacts like the video and screenshots.
What we learned
First of all, and most appropriately I learned a lot about Japan and Uzbekistan. Technically, I learned a lot about working with media heavy sites and how to make compelling content.
What's next for Trip Companion
First - I'd love to have human made content besides the basic AI generated content - for example " favourite spots in Tokyo" or similar stories to connect the learner with people. Ha, I can make this now actually from online interviews. I guess that mostly having more people try it, give their opinion and use it to get excited :)
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