In overview, the user creates vocabulary flashcards she wants to study. When reviewing a flashcard, the user can choose whether she got it right or not. Each time she gets it right, the time for the card to reappear is increased. If she gets it wrong, the card is reset to reappear much sooner. This is a basic spaced repetition learning model.
- Build as a web app - should be accessible via browser
- App should be deployed to a live server and should not need local deployment to test
- Must build with an MVC framework (eg Django, Rails)
- Final code should be shared with us.
Admin Interface:
- Create tool where the user can create a single word and definition
- View cards tool that displays all cards and their current status (bin, time to next appearance, # of times answered incorrect)
Flashcard Logic:
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There are 12 bins of cards, each representing increasing levels of mastery.
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Each user-word starts out in bin 0.
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If a user gets a word right, it moves to the next bin, up to bin 11.
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If a user gets a word wrong, it goes back to bin 1.
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Bins 1-11 are associated with the following timespans: 5 seconds, 25 seconds, 2 minutes, 10 minutes, 1 hour, 5 hours, 1 day, 5 days, 25 days, 4 months, and never. The timespans reflect the amount of time to wait before the next review of that card.
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Reviewing Words:
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If any words have reached 0 time or less, review these first.
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For the subset above, review higher-numbered bins before lower bins.
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If all words have positive timers on them, start drawing new words from bin 0.
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If there are no words in bin 0 and all words still have positive timers, display a message: “You are temporarily done; please come back later to review more words.”
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Forgetting Words:
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If a user has gotten any single word wrong 10 times ever (even if they got the word right in between; this is a lifetime count), the word gets put into a “hard to remember” bin and is never shown again.
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If all words are either in the last bin (never review) or in “hard to remember”, display a message “you have no more words to review; you are permanently done!”
- When a user loads the app, he is a shown a word.
- When he sees a word and clicks “show definition” the definition displays.
- After seeing the definition, he clicks “I got it” or “I did not get it”
- Status messages may also be shown as defined above
- UI can be simple and uitilitarian.
On the technical side, we're looking for feature functionality, code organization, and overall decision making. Treat this project like an MVP, getting the functionality out quickly rather than bloating it.