Introducing Homework Helper
Hello everybody,
After seeing my grade school nieces struggle with their homework assignments, and I myself becoming frustrated with trying to help my 9-year old niece with an overly complex math assignment one day, I started working on–more like stumbling through–my first app I would create. I’d tinker on the app here and there and off-and-on for a while. Fast-forward to 7 months later, I’ve decided to put it out there and get feedback on my work
Introducing Home Helper, an AI-powered learning assistant designed to help students, parents and tutors with questions spanning multiple academic subjects.
Here are the current features of Homework Helper:
Using ChatGPT 4o to provide accurate and useful information.
Voice input to speak your questions instead of typing it.
A chat history to view previous searches.
Instead of merely giving an answer, the responses are tailored to give detailed explanations as to how the solution was reached and recommend further reading and follow-up questions.
The ability to export and save explanations.
Multiple academic subjects to inquire from, like Math, Writing, History, Science and Dictionary.
The site and its features are currently 100% free of charge to use. I want to get as much feedback as to what works and what needs improvement before making next steps. Any feedback is appreciated.
So, what do you think?
Do you love it?
Would you recommend improvements?
Do you think I wasted close to a year making trash?
Tell me what you think!
Here is the link to the website:
https://homework-helper-rmand7007.replit.app
I like that the product started from a real moment of frustration rather than a technology idea.
One distinction I keep thinking about with learning tools is whether they're optimizing for getting an answer or helping someone become the kind of person who can arrive at that answer themselves. Those can look similar on the surface but lead to very different products.
Thanks for checking out my post! I think that products arising from pain points and not just ideas to make money have an real chance to help people and build a loyal base.
On your second point, I think that learning products designed to help the user arrive at the answer themselves have greater staying power and income potential than ones that just give an answer. I hope my app falls into former category.
I'm glad to have made something can help my nieces. Hopefully I can get more feedback and refine this app so I can help more people.
I appreciate you taking the time to explain your thinking.
I'd be interested in continuing the conversation by email if you're open to it. What's the best email to reach you on?
Sorry, but right now I'm more comfortable with continuing the conversation here.
No problem—I completely understand.
In that case, I'll leave it here for now. I've enjoyed the conversation, and I appreciate you taking the time to share how you're thinking about the product.
I think this is cool, and the site looks well polished
I asked for something vague and it gave me an interesting chemistry lesson, cool! I especially like that you are thinking of ways to not let the model just hand the user an answer outright, which bypasses our natural learning!
Some things I am curious about:
What is the underlying model used?
How do you plan to set this apart from any ol chatGPT-like experience? I think the teaching subject style outputs and select-able subjects is definitely a good start
Hi there, thanks for using the app and liking what you see!
Yeah I agree with you, I think students learn better when they get a lesson tailored from their question rather than just handing them the answer and sending them along their way. I'm looking for staying power for my app and assisting students to understand the subject they're inquiring into appeals to me.
As to your questions:
I'm curently using GPT - 4o to power the app. I had it on 4.5. but ran into errors that forced my back to good ol' 4o.
What I currently have in my mind is to make the app more user-friendly to younger students like 1st graders. Improve the interface and things like that to appeal to the youngsters. Another idea is to gamify the expericnce - add badges, levels points, etc. to give the kids an enjoyable time while searching for an answer.
Thanks for your kind words and trying out my creation and telling me what you think! I truly appreciate it!