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Rohith Pavithran
Rohith Pavithran

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Tides: Tactile After-School Energy Pacing for My 11-Year-Old Daughter

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What I Built

I built Tides for my 11-year-old daughter, Nia, who just started 6th grade.

Entering middle school is an immense sensory, physical, and cognitive leap. Every afternoon around 3:30 PM, Nia walks through the front door carrying an oversized backpack and an empty mental battery after 7 hours of changing classrooms, navigating social dynamics, noisy cafeterias, and intense physical education.

Whenever we tried traditional task managers or homework tracking apps, they made things worse:

  1. High executive function barrier: Asking a drained 11-year-old to type task titles, configure due dates, and estimate minute durations creates immediate resistance and friction.
  2. Guilt and anxiety spirals: When a 6th-grader falls behind, traditional apps flash red overdue badges and warning exclamation marks, creating avoidance and shame.
  3. Homework bloat eating into sleep: Without strict boundaries, 20 minutes of math expands into the evening, pushing out her playtime, dinner, and bedtime.

Tides is an adaptive, offline-first personal energy-pacing Progressive Web App (PWA) designed to solve this in under 10 seconds:

  • 10-Second Arrival Check-In: Nia opens the app on her phone or tablet, sees "How full is your tank, Nia?", and drags a single fluid, spring-physics slider. Releasing her finger triggers a satisfying haptic pulse and automatically logs her battery level. Zero "Submit" buttons, zero typing.
  • The 3-Zone Desk Dial: Her afternoon is visually mapped into three tactile zones:
    • 🔵 Focus (Deep Blue): High cognitive work (homework, math). Hard-capped to prevent exhaustion.
    • 🟢 Reset (Sage): Nervous system down-regulation (snack, walk, shower, quiet Lego time).
    • 🟡 Joy (Amber): Non-negotiable play, drawing, games, and reading for fun.
  • Pluggable Adaptive Rule Engine: If Nia logs an arrival battery $\le 30\%$, Tides instantly triggers the Battery MVP Fail-Safe—shrinking focus to 20 minutes (only 1 Must-Do task allowed) and shifting 40 minutes into Reset. It also detects recurring fatigue patterns (e.g., Zombie Thursdays from double-PE and band) to proactively shield her schedule.
  • Frictionless Task Sorter & 15m Sprint Runner: Large tactile cards with single-tap stamps: 🔴 Must Do, 🟡 Next Up, and 🟢 Later. She taps "Start Sprint", focuses through a distraction-free 15-minute countdown, and finishes with confetti and 3 tactile reflection chips: 🟢 Breeze, 🟡 Fine, or 🔴 Drag.
  • Guilt-Free 21-Day Static Decay: Tasks parked in "Later" that sit untouched for 21 days are auto-sunsetted without alarming notifications.
  • Parent Dashboard for Rohith: Gives me visibility into Nia's weekly Vital 4 Metrics (Average Arrival Tank, Joy:Focus Ratio, Task Drag Rate, and Zombie Days) with rule calibration controls and an audit trail explaining why Tides adjusted her schedule.

Demo

Visual Walkthrough

1. Nia's Arrival Tank & The 10-Second Slider

When Nia arrives home, she adjusts the fluid slider with spring physics and tactile haptic feedback. If battery drops $\le 30\%$, the MVP Fail-Safe activates automatically:
Nia Arrival Tank Check-In

2. The Tactile 3-Zone Desk Dial & Task Sorter

Afternoon time is distributed dynamically across Focus, Reset, and Joy. Nia can prioritize her work in under 15 seconds with single-tap 🔴/🟡/🟢 stamps:
Tactile 3-Zone Desk Dial and Task Triage

3. Rohith's Parent Dashboard & Vital 4 Metrics

A bird's-eye view of chronic burnout risks, weekly joy-to-focus balance, and live rule audit trails:
Parent Retrospective Dashboard

Code

The complete source code is open-source and hosted on GitHub:
https://github.com/irmein/tides

Key Code Highlight: The Extensible Rule Pipeline

Tides avoids spaghetti if-else business logic by using a pluggable, priority-driven rule engine. Here is the contract and the Battery MVP Rule:

// src/engine/rules/base.rule.ts
export interface EvaluationContext {
  todayBattery: number; // 0 - 100%
  recentLogs: BatteryCheckIn[]; // Past 14-21 days of logs
  activeTasks: Task[];
  currentSchedule: DaySchedule;
  settings: UserSettings;
}

export interface RuleResult {
  ruleId: string;
  ruleName: string;
  triggered: boolean;
  priority: number; // 1-100 (100 = Critical safety override)
  actionType: 'OVERRIDE_TODAY' | 'MUTATE_WEEK' | 'DECOMPOSE_TASK' | 'AUTO_SUNSET';
  payload: Record<string, any>;
  reason: string;
}

export interface AdaptiveRule {
  id: string;
  name: string;
  priority: number;
  evaluate: (ctx: EvaluationContext) => RuleResult | null;
}
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// src/engine/rules/batteryMvp.rule.ts
export const BatteryMvpRule: AdaptiveRule = {
  id: 'battery-mvp-fail-safe',
  name: 'Enforce MVP on Critical Battery',
  priority: 100, // Highest priority override
  evaluate: ({ todayBattery, settings }) => {
    const threshold = settings.batteryMvpThreshold || 30;
    if (todayBattery <= threshold) {
      return {
        ruleId: 'battery-mvp-fail-safe',
        ruleName: 'Enforce MVP on Critical Battery',
        triggered: true,
        priority: 100,
        actionType: 'OVERRIDE_TODAY',
        payload: {
          isMvpMode: true,
          maxFocusMinutes: 20,
          allowedPriorities: ['MUST_DO'],
          reallocateZone: 'RESET',
          autoShiftMinutes: 40,
        },
        reason: `Battery at ${todayBattery}% (<= ${threshold}%): Switched to MVP Mode. Only 1 urgent task allowed; Focus shrunk to 20m and 40m transferred to Reset.`,
      };
    }
    return null;
  },
};
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How I Built It

Tides was built from the ground up prioritizing speed, instant offline access, and tactile kid ergonomics:

1. Technology Stack

  • Framework: React 19 + TypeScript + Vite for instant bundling and minimal footprint.
  • Offline-First Reactive Database: Dexie.js (IndexedDB). Every check-in, task status, and schedule adjustment is written synchronously to local device storage. The app works flawlessly on airplane mode or spotty home Wi-Fi.
  • PWA & Cache Strategy: vite-plugin-pwa + Workbox. The application shell, typography, and SVGs are precached via CacheFirst.
  • State Management: Zustand micro-stores (useEnergyStore, useScheduleStore, useTaskStore, useEngineStore) cleanly decoupled from UI rendering.
  • Tactile Physics & Motion: Framer Motion hydraulic spring configurations (stiffness: 300, damping: 24), Web Vibration API haptics, and pure HTML5 Web Audio API sound synthesis (zero external audio network requests).
  • Styling: Tailwind CSS with custom luminescent CSS variable tokens for the 3 zones.

2. AI Agent Pair Programming

The entire architecture, domain models, rule engine, and components were pair-programmed using the Google Antigravity IDE and autonomous agent harness:

  • Fast prototyping of tactile ergonomics (verifying thumb touch zones and 64px tap targets).
  • End-to-end browser subagent automated testing with video session capture.
  • Structured architectural blueprinting in markdown prior to writing production code.

Why Does Open Innovation Matter?

When designing technology for children—especially around mental health, daily energy, and school stress—open innovation is not optional; it is fundamental.

  1. Child Privacy & Zero Commercial Telemetry (COPPA Compliance): Commercial children's educational apps frequently harvest analytics, device identifiers, and behavioral profiles. With Tides, all neuro-physiological data, daily mood tags, and schedule friction logs stay strictly inside Nia's device IndexedDB sandbox. There are no tracking scripts, ad SDKs, or cloud analytics.
  2. Freedom from Gamified Dark Patterns: Many commercial study apps rely on streak pressure, red warning notifications, and monetization popups that trigger anxiety in young kids. An open-source, local-first app allows us to prioritize emotional safety: auto-sunsetting tasks without guilt badges and protecting playtime over homework bloat.
  3. Extensibility for Diverse Neurotypes: Every child's brain regulates energy differently. Because Tides is built around a pluggable open rule engine, parents, teachers, and developers can contribute open heuristic modules:
    • Rules for ADHD hyperfocus and executive function resets.
    • Seasonal sports practice exhaustion mitigations.
    • Exam season pace shields and sleep deficit protectors.

Open innovation made it possible to build a calm, respectful tool that serves a child's well-being rather than a tech company's engagement metrics.

My Agent Session

This project was architected, implemented, and verified with the help of an autonomous AI agent in the Antigravity IDE:

{% agent_session 4bc093b2-1a41-445c-9a11-efd2a777e451 %}
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(Session transcript includes architectural blueprints, Dexie.js database schema migrations, rule engine unit evaluations, and automated browser walkthrough recordings).

Prize Categories

  • Primary Track: Build for a Friend / Loved One (Built specifically for my 11-year-old daughter, Nia, to protect her after-school energy and joy).
  • Special Categories:
    • Best Offline-First / PWA Experience
    • Best Open Innovation & Human-Centered Design

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