Your thoughts on a chemistry study web app I made in a week

[Sterling729]

Following the CENTS model, I decided it would be best to put my coding skills into making something unique to the market rather than sell junk from aliexpress.

I made this in a little over a week. I remember the only way I got really good marks in organic chemistry in college was when I practiced a dozen exam papers and my prof was kind enough to go over them with me.
Here, I used chatgpt to insert ochem questions, with the molecules (in SMILES format) and then the frontend loads up the molecule based on the code (such as CC=C) so it doesnt take up much space. I was thinking about creating an AI app where the user receives questions based on the answers they keep getting wrong, but I find the prompts have to be super exact (and I still find it gives me the wrong types of questions even on GPT4). So for now, I'm just taking advantage that I can generate question sets super fast.

Now the step is to get some feedback and ask what types of questions or features users (students) would like to see. I'm thinking about putting this on a phone app so students can be productive when commuting to and from college, or waiting around, etc. My plan is if this doesnt garner much interest, I'll come up with another app which I can build super quick with the same tools I did here: html/js, nodejs, sql server, AWS (S3, EC2, RDS).

http://www.ochemcoach.com

(note: ensure it is http not https, i'm still working on getting https to work)

 

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[Andy Black]

Following the CENTS model, I decided it would be best to put my coding skills into making something unique to the market rather than sell junk from aliexpress.

I made this in a little over a week. I remember the only way I got really good marks in organic chemistry in college was when I practiced a dozen exam papers and my prof was kind enough to go over them with me.
Here, I used chatgpt to insert ochem questions, with the molecules (in SMILES format) and then the frontend loads up the molecule based on the code (such as CC=C) so it doesnt take up much space. I was thinking about creating an AI app where the user receives questions based on the answers they keep getting wrong, but I find the prompts have to be super exact (and I still find it gives me the wrong types of questions even on GPT4). So for now, I'm just taking advantage that I can generate question sets super fast.

Now the step is to get some feedback and ask what types of questions or features users (students) would like to see. I'm thinking about putting this on a phone app so students can be productive when commuting to and from college, or waiting around, etc. My plan is if this doesnt garner much interest, I'll come up with another app which I can build super quick with the same tools I did here: html/js, nodejs, sql server, AWS (S3, EC2, RDS).

OChemCoach

I changed your thread title to ask for feedback. I think @Spenny sells some Chemistry related product. @ZCP is an engineer and likes helping students.

How will you get students to try it out?

 

[Spenny]

I'm an undergrad 3rd year chemist & this is good - although I hope my IP hasn't been stolen from an insecure SSL.

I like the idea, but how will you make yourself different?

My friend, who is looking to become a chemistry lecturer, is in love with Anki, alongside many medical students.

I know there's also Khan Academy and many OChem tutorials on YouTube. I use these religiously.

Perhaps something is missing from these sources that you capitalise on? I'll ask my whizzy friend if he has any annoyances.

After thought edit:
What I'm trying to ask is, how will you be different & be better? Because there are a lot of resources out there, there are a lot of tutors & there are a lot of SAAS sort of models, too. This is not to discourage, but must be considered, because you may be speaking into the void & getting no signal back.

 

[Andy Black]

I'm an undergrad 3rd year chemist & this is good - although I hope my IP hasn't been stolen from an insecure SSL.

I like the idea, but how will you make yourself different?

My friend, who is looking to become a chemistry lecturer, is in love with Anki, alongside many medical students.

I know there's also Khan Academy and many OChem tutorials on YouTube. I use these religiously.

Perhaps something is missing from these sources that you capitalise on? I'll ask my whizzy friend if he has any annoyances.

After thought edit:
What I'm trying to ask is, how will you be different & be better? Because there are a lot of resources out there, there are a lot of tutors & there are a lot of SAAS sort of models, too. This is not to discourage, but must be considered, because you may be speaking into the void & getting no signal back.

Just a thought... it doesn't have to be different or better. It sometimes just has to be known.

 

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[Spenny]

Just a thought... it doesn't have to be different or better. It sometimes just has to be known.

That's true. I've seen a load of deep fake politicians teaching differentiation (Trump, Obama, Biden), and that is a fantastic way to get people engaged because it's silly yet educating. Although it's not strictly revising, it's still a form of value. I can imagine a social media page like that promoting some sort of study tool/guide alongside it's content.

 

[Andy Black]

That's true. I've seen a load of deep fake politicians teaching differentiation (Trump, Obama, Biden), and that is a fantastic way to get people engaged because it's silly yet educating. Although it's not strictly revising, it's still a form of value. I can imagine a social media page like that promoting some sort of study tool/guide alongside it's content.

You've just reminded me that I've seen quizzes on YouTube where they ask a question, have a countdown, give the answer, repeat 10 times. A simple way to educate and build an audience.

 

[Sterling729]

I changed your thread title to ask for feedback. I think @Spenny sells some Chemistry related product. @ZCP is an engineer and likes helping students.

How will you get students to try it out?

For now, I'll try to find reddit and discord groups. Might go to the Universities in my area and post flyers if I need more users. I can also try ads potentially.

 

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[Sterling729]

I'm an undergrad 3rd year chemist & this is good - although I hope my IP hasn't been stolen from an insecure SSL.

I like the idea, but how will you make yourself different?

My friend, who is looking to become a chemistry lecturer, is in love with Anki, alongside many medical students.

I know there's also Khan Academy and many OChem tutorials on YouTube. I use these religiously.

Perhaps something is missing from these sources that you capitalise on? I'll ask my whizzy friend if he has any annoyances.

After thought edit:
What I'm trying to ask is, how will you be different & be better? Because there are a lot of resources out there, there are a lot of tutors & there are a lot of SAAS sort of models, too. This is not to discourage, but must be considered, because you may be speaking into the void & getting no signal back.

Thanks for the insights. I'll have to look into Anki and see what feature this and other similar resources have.

From my experience, particularly in a course like OChem, was that getting a good mark largely came down to how well you were good at doing the exam questions. You could understand the concepts in theory, but when it came down to putting the knowledge in more practical questions (ie. how would you make this compound with these chemicals) you needed to practice those types of questions.
Maybe there are resources which have a similar ochem exam practice method. The other feature I've been thinking about is to give the user questions based on the questions and concepts they've got wrong. They could also give feedback on the types of questions they like (the ones they're most likely to see on their college's exam papers), and use ChatGPT API to provide those questions. But I'd have to make sure I can get a good formula for creating the prompts.

Oh yeah, thanks for reminding me about the SSL lol.

 

[Sterling729]

Got Https to work. Posted on reddit and a discord server. Got some feedback saying it was "good" on discord, but I guess really need people to vote with their dollars to see if it's a good market need. Wondering what I can do to test if the need is there, maybe a presale or something, or a gofund me for $100.