Wordbank It!

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  Wordbank it.

Inspiration

Ever had to search for an esoteric word from your British television over and over again? Like "esoteric"? Or stumbled upon terms you've never heard before in a research paper you need to understand?

What it does

Our Google Chrome extension Wordbank It! lets you save any word to your word bank for future reference. Just highlight a word, and a sidebar pops up with definitions from Dictionary.com. You can then store the word, alongside a custom note/definition/sentence it was used in.

How we built it

We used Javascript to create the Chrome extension and followed the Chrome for Developers tutorial for the basics. For the subfeatures, we looked at a lot of sample Chrome extensions and often asked ChatGPT for help.

Challenges we ran into

To store the words in a query-able database, we wanted to integrate Python into the JavaScript environment and use pandas to manipulate the database, but this would prove complicated. Instead, we aimed to store information locally using Chrome's IndexedDB API, a JavaScript-based database that lets you store and retrieve objects that are indexed with a key.

We also had trouble using the Merriam-Webster API—errors would occur when the word's information is not properly indexed. Lastly, we used Python to access the dictionary's API and struggled to integrate it into JavaScript.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

All of us have either never touched JavaScript before or learned it a long time ago, so we're proud to build a functioning program in such a short amount of time.

What we learned

We learned JavaScript and how to make a Chrome extension (the latter is surprisingly easy)! We also learned how to access/use different APIs and make compromises with our skillsets and available tools.

What's next for Wordbank It!

Moving forward, we hope to integrate AI/ML into our extension to generate vocab quizzes to test for comprehension as well as a list of related words.

We'd also like to be able to highlight our saved words if they appear on a webpage in the future.

Built With

• indexeddb
• javascript
• merriamwebsterapi
• python
• sidepanel