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Alpha Canvas

An infinite canvas for studying together. Drop in notes and documents, edit with anyone in real time, and make quizzes or flashcards from a selection.

Year
2025
Track
built
Category
prototype

Tools

  • Next.js
  • Tailwind CSS

Studying is social and the software almost never is. So this one assumes more than one person from the start.

The canvas is what makes it collaborative. Because it is infinite and everything on it is an object, students drop in images, notes and documents, and anyone on the team can edit them at the same time. There is no document to pass around and no version to reconcile.

Select several objects and it generates study material out of exactly those: flashcards, quizzes, mock exams. Ask it a question and the answer comes from its own knowledge and from what is currently on the canvas, which is the part that makes it feel like a workspace rather than a chat window bolted to a page.

This is the second run at the same problem. Inline Blocks put the study tools inside one document. This one takes them out of the document and onto a board.

Screens

  1. The sessions index. Six canvases are listed as cards, each with its subject, when it was last touched, a share control and a progress bar, and a Create New Canvas tile sits first in the grid. The shell around the canvas is a plain library rather than anything clever.
    The shell is a library of boards. The work happens inside one of them.
  2. The board mid-session. Two note objects are selected and a panel offers Quiz, Flashcards, Summary, Podcast and Study guide built from exactly those, under a line reading AI actions will use selected items. Two other cursors are on the canvas carrying names, and three avatars sit in the top corner.
    Select objects, and what it makes comes from exactly those.
  3. Objects of different kinds on one board. A lecture handout sits as a PDF card with its file size printed, a note lists the hold parameters for a drug, a drill card is mid-question, and a voice note records over the top of them with a live waveform and a stop control.
    Notes, documents and a voice recording, all objects on the same surface.
See it running

More prototypes

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