Entrance Page
Encouraging Facts
Log-in Page
Interactive Stock Market Game
Dashboard
Game Progress
Stocks
Trade Ledger - Stock History
Chatting With Stocky The Mentor

Mini Mart 💰

Teach money skills early. Play. Invest. Grow.

Mini Market is an inclusive financial simulator that turns the intimidating world of investing into a level playing field. Designed for beginners of all ages, it allows users to master the market in real time, breaking down systemic barriers to financial literacy. By teaching core concepts like risk and diversification through a risk-free, gamified experience, we provide the tools for social mobility and economic equity, all without any real-world consequences.

🧠 Inspiration

A lot of "learn investing" content is either too advanced or too boring for younger learners. We wanted something that feels like a game, explains concepts in plain language, and lets beginners learn by doing, without turning it into gambling or hype.

So we built Mini Mart: an interactive stock market experience where every trade teaches you something.

🔍 What It Does

Mini Market is an easy-to-use simulator that turns the confusing world of investing into a fair playing field for everyone. Designed for beginners of all ages, it lets people practice with the market in real time, breaking down the walls that keep many people from learning about money. By teaching things like risk and balance through a fun, risk-free game, we give everyone the tools to grow their future, without any of the real-world danger.

To keep learners motivated, Mini Mart layers in:

Levels & XP — Challenges like "Make your first BUY" and "Make your first SELL" reward action and progress.
Goal Tracker — A visual progress bar pushes beginners toward a target amount, keeping the stakes fun and clear.
Trade Ledger — Every transaction is logged, so beginners can look back and learn from their own decisions.
Stocky (AI Helper) — A built-in mentor powered by Gemini that offers guidance, answers questions, and explains concepts in a way that actually makes sense for younger learners.
Tutorial & Leaderboard — It feels like a game, but it's reinforcing real investing concepts like risk and long-term growth the entire time.

⚙️ How We Built It

Frontend

React — Smooth, component-based learning experience with real-time UI updates.
Tailwind CSS — Modern, game-like interface built fast with utility classes.
JavaScript — Flexible, accessible, and fast to prototype.

Backend & Data

Firebase Authentication — Secure sign-up and login so beginners can return and pick up where they left off.
Firebase Firestore — Stores portfolio holdings, balance, goals, XP, and trade history. Real-time updates keep everything synced across sessions.

AI

Google Gemini API — Powers Stocky, the AI mentor. Generates context-aware, age-appropriate guidance based on the beginners current balance, portfolio, and recent trades.

Deployment

Vercel — Seamless CI/CD, instant previews, and reliable production hosting.

🪦 Challenges We Ran Into

Building Mini Mart looked easy on paper — but the real battles were in the details.

Building a "Safe Failure" Zone. We successfully created a space where beginners can make mistakes and learn from them without any real-world financial danger. Providing this safety net is a huge step toward making financial education more equitable for everyone.
Fun without encouraging bad habits. We had to keep the game feel engaging without accidentally promoting "get rich quick" thinking. Striking that balance was a constant conversation throughout the hackathon.
Integrating a Smarter Mentor. Using Google Gemini, we turned Stocky from a simple chatbot into a true AI mentor. Seeing Stocky translate high-level market data into encouraging, plain-English advice was a major milestone for our team.
Making the invisible, visible. Concepts like risk and volatility are often the biggest walls keeping people from starting their investment journey. We used UI experimentation to turn these abstract ideas into "visual feelings", using colour-coded feedback and waveforms so that anyone, regardless of their background, can understand market movement at a glance.

😁 What We're Proud Of

Stocky actually works. Integrating the Gemini API to build an AI mentor that's friendly, age-safe, and context-aware was the hardest piece — and it turned out to be the best piece.
It's context-aware. Stocky references the user's actual balance, portfolio, and recent trades when giving advice. It's not generic.
It looks and feels polished. The React + Tailwind interface is clean, approachable, and genuinely fun to use, not just another boring educational tool.
It could actually be used. This isn't a demo. It's an educational product that could realistically land in a classroom, student club, or self learning.
Everything deployed smoothly. Firebase, Gemini, and Vercel all working together reliably across devices, no shortcuts taken.

📖 What We Learned

How to explain financial concepts in clear, age-appropriate language — especially when those explanations are generated dynamically by an AI.
How to design learner-focused UX that balances engagement and education through levels, XP, progress indicators, and immediate feedback.
How to integrate the Gemini API to deliver safe, context-aware AI responses that adapt in real time.
How to use Firebase Auth and Firestore to persist user progress across sessions without friction.
Stronger React fundamentals: state management, component composition, conditional rendering, and building reusable UI patterns under pressure.

🚀 What's Next for Mini Mart

More learning modes — Quizzes, mini-lessons, and scenario challenges like "What happens if you put all your money in one stock?"
Achievements & goals — Rewards for good investing habits: diversifying, holding long-term, avoiding panic sells.
Better analytics — Simple charts showing portfolio growth and risk over time.
Teacher & parent view — Track student progress, concepts completed, and learning outcomes from the outside in.