Trick

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  user says the french word 'chien' for dog

Inspiration

Our inspiration came from seeing people struggle when learning a new language, particularly when it comes to learning vocabulary. We found that many vocabulary-memorizing apps lack an ability to check the learner's pronunciation, so we wanted to create an app that allows language learners to memorize vocabulary while also ensuring they get oral practice. We thought gamification is an awesome way to keep users engaged, and given that we are in October, we used the Halloween theme, so the user can become a wizard muttering 'spells' in a foreign language to vanquish those pesky Jack'o Lanterns.

What it does

Various Jack'o lanterns representing different vocabulary will move toward the player wizard, and the user can either type the translation, or say the vocabulary in the foreign language to defeat the Jack'o lantern.

How we built it

The Trick UI is built using ReactJS and Redux. The speech to text recognition is built Web Speech APIs. The vocabulary list is built in the backend using Firebase and Node JS.

Challenges we ran into

We tried to use Google Cloud's speech to text API, however, we had difficulties connecting its output to our front-end, so we had to use another API last minute. We ended up using Web Speech API instead.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud of our front end graphics; our team had to learn animation from scratch to create our final product.

What we learned

We learned about animation, how to use Google Cloud speech-to-text API, and integrating APIs with React JS.

What's next for Trick

We will work on expanding the vocabulary and allowing user the choice of uploading their own vocabulary lists. This will improve the language learning functionality of the app.

Built With

• css
• firebase
• google-cloud
• google-cloud-speech-to-text
• javascript
• react.js
• redux