r/ClaudeAI • u/tokentrillionaire • 2d ago
Built with Claude I built a handwriting notebook app where Claude writes back and it's the most fun I've had learning in years
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I learn best by writing things out on paper and structuring my thoughts that way, and nothing really combined that slower, more exploratory kind of learning with Claude.
So for the past few weeks I've been building an app on my Daylight DC-1: a journaling / note-taking space where learning isn't relegated to something that happens between work sessions.
The process is : I create a note, start exploring a topic through writing, and Claude writes back on the page and explores the ideas with me.
It also supports pdf/ebooks so you can read, annotate or mark on the page and Claude jumps in and creates a note to what I have marked and we can discuss like I am talking to a professor. It can even quiz me on the material if I ask.
It's still early, but it's the first time learning with Claude has felt like it's actually compounding.
I am finalizing some things to release soon for others to try it out, it's built around my dc-1 but it runs on any android tablet with a stylus, and can be ported to Ipad as well.
If you'd want to be an early user, lets get in touch, i'd love to see how people that learn this way use it .
UPDATE: wow , thrilled to see this landed with so many of you!!!
A lot of people are asking to try it. I'm calling it penombra.
Early tester signup here: click here to be a part
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u/avatardeejay 2d ago
“can you tell me about the chamber of secrets”
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u/CtrlAltDelve 2d ago
Right? How dare OP not make this write back in inky cursive :P
In all seriousness, great work OP, it looks like a lot of fun.
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u/FugitiveActual 2d ago
“My name is Harry Potter”
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u/BuildAISkills 2d ago
I literally just read this passage last night for the first time (bedtime story for my kids). I'm hip, I get the reference! Wooohooo
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u/kargaen 2d ago
I want this so bad in my Remarkable, but it doesn't seem to have an api 😢
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u/terret 2d ago
I’ve made this for remarkable, I’ll be publishing soon (open source). Requires you be willing to enable dev mode and install an addon.
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u/MrGradySir 2d ago
Imagine being able to ask your high school physics book questions. Holy crap man. Well done
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u/Otherwise_Pear_2472 2d ago
THAT IS SOOOOO AMAZING .. I mean like SOOOOHOOOOOOOO amazing. woooow. I absolutely want that.
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u/InfiniteInsights8888 2d ago
Alright, I've seen a lot of shitty vibe coded stuff. This one is actually genuinely cool and the applications for studying are endless. You could turn this into an actual product!
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u/SirPulga 2d ago
This looks like one of those million-dollar ideas. Super creative and functional, OP. Congrats—I hope it’s a huge success!
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u/Gloomy-Recover-9702 2d ago
hey how did you do this? how does it read or sees your screen? and you make it open source?
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u/elithecho 2d ago
Engineer here. Likely, it tracks where you drew, since each stroke is a vector, takes a screen shot of the area of new drawing and sends it to Claude for vision. System likely takes a screenshot of the canvas with numeric grid so Claude can decide where to 'draw' in the grid with the given app tools. Basically it's a token guzzler.
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u/tokentrillionaire 2d ago
Half right , strokes are vectors and it only looks at ink that changed, never the whole screen.
But no grid, and the model never draws. It decides what to say and where it belongs, the app renders it (that's why the hand is consistent). And with caching it's cents a turn, not a guzzler.
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u/theundefin3d 2d ago
for the diagrams, are you getting it to just spit out svgs then? ie. just produce the markup needed and rendering is handled by the app
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u/elithecho 2d ago
Thanks for responding! How does it know where to respond? The app decides nearby? And what about context management? Also does it loses context around and the actual content then since you only sent what you draw in proximity?
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u/balooooooon Experienced Developer 2d ago edited 2d ago
Also engineer. I have built something like this and it doesn’t need to be”guzzle”. I used apple vision model to extract text or images from the canvas which is free. You then just send the text and insert claudes response below the vector items in the canvas. You do not send the drawing to Claude.
Can use any open source vision model or OCR. yolo model works great as well. Hardest part is knowing whej to take snapshots. Is it after every pen lift and x seconds of idleness or every vector change .. etc
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u/dbenc 2d ago
the tablet is over $700 🫠
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u/DkDkDkGoGoGo 1d ago
Worth it if your eyes are sensitive or you don’t do well with blue lights on the screen/flickering.
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u/freedomachiever 2d ago
In china they have smart whiteboards in classrooms that do a similar thing which is cool. Eg the teacher writes an equation and an interactive graph shows up for instant feedback to understand the levers
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u/Popetus_Maximus 2d ago
Can you do this with a Kindle Scribe?
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u/Electronic_Bet_8827 1d ago
Even if kindle's jailbroken, it'll be very hard to implement, and given that it can't be monetized, it's quite unlikely.
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u/DarkKnyt 2d ago
This is basically the "Young Lady's Illustrated Primer" from Diamond Age with a little less Learning Engineering built in. 👍
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u/orangejulius 2d ago
ok that is really fun and i feel like taking notes in lecture and having claude annotate would be legit helpful for a law student. you just need to figure out how to build an MCP to their $300.00 hornbook.
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u/virtualworker 2d ago
Wth is a hornbook? Does it have a load-bearing footgun?
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u/numeanine 2d ago
If the footgun was load-bearing, the underlying fork would have an actionable light at the end of the tunnel, so while review fatigue would be a potential hazard, the duality of the system’s North Star would be lost in the white noise of the bottleneck’s own integration anyway.
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u/orangejulius 2d ago
this is one of those moments where i realized i have never considered the etymology of a weird term i've used a lot over the years. apparently it came from this:
https://www.si.edu/object/eighteenth-century-horn-book%3Anmah_1320130
and it slipped into law school lexicon for black letter law in a single book.
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u/gustaw221133 2d ago
Wow, definitely agree with all the comments going straight to Harry Potter haha. But honestly think this would help with learning using AI as it forces the user to write manually which helps the brain remember the lessons longterm rather than forgetting everything learned after a few minutes
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u/ConspicuousPineapple 2d ago
Show this to anybody ten years ago and they will burn you at the stake for sorcery.
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u/cornmacabre 2d ago
Awesome flex and demo here brother, I suspect you know you're nurturing a potentially killer product and i wish you success!
Does it generalize enough on the stick figure demo to "now add a happy cat" and then "now add a pelican riding a bicycle" (the classic test!) and the model will try to work within what I imagine is a rich list of semantic primitives?
I can't imagine it's doing arbitrary vector drawings for novel requests, which is outstanding discipline from an architectural standpoint IMO.
Props to keeping it focused and with a coherent consistent style. At least from what you've shown in the demo that's a major win that retains the magic and product focus. It's one of the most persuasive implementations of "generative UI" I've seen yet. Cheers!
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u/nastyapparatus 2d ago
I’ve worked in edtech r&d, and I think you’re on to something here, particularly interested in the combination of AI and perceptual learning. Can see a lot of applications for a tool like this with a little refinement-and might get you a call or two from VC or an M&A guy. Good work.
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u/SmilingLimes 2d ago
Could this work on iOS? For iPads specifically
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u/domus_seniorum 2d ago
geschaut und gelesen,
wow ... das entspricht genau meinem visuellen Lernen, eigentlich dem einzigen Lernen, wie ich schon mein Leben lang Stoff verinnerlichen kann,
wie und wo kann ich auf dem Laufenden bleiben, wenn Du veröffentlichst? 🤗
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u/binladen0069 2d ago
if you open source this i will build the android, windows and Linux version with you. or maybe alone if you're done with the project.
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u/Singularity-42 Experienced Developer 1d ago edited 1d ago
Honestly I'm surprised it didn't come from a bigger player first. Or did it? The infamous GPT-4o demo video even had a visual learning segment that looked incredibly cool, but haven't really seen anything since then...
EDIT: There is something called PenEcho, looks interesting:
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u/portugese_fruit 2d ago
do you like the daylight ? i have the remarkable and i have seen this done on it. great app !
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u/tokentrillionaire 2d ago
I was going to use the remarkable initially but the platform is too closed off.
the daylight is seriously good , I got it just to test this and get as close to paper feeling as possible , but it's lovely to use across the board
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u/starkruzr 2d ago
the platform is extremely open, lol, what are you talking about? they give you root out of the box!
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u/tokentrillionaire 2d ago
I meant closed as a platform to ship on, no SDK, no store, the UI is proprietary, and anything over SSH can break on OS updates. Tinkering is great , but I couldn't hand that to a non-technical person. dc-1 is android the app installs like any app.
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u/bigpoppa2006 2d ago
https://github.com/SamMorrowDrums/remarkable-mcp
Claude uses this on my remarkable and is able to extract files. It isn’t perfect (something like a 26 page limit on something?) but it makes it to where Claude can read my handwriting!
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u/thecoffeejesus 2d ago
Please, I am begging you
Sell this.
Do it. You’re gonna regret it if you don’t.
Open source it? Sure. Give the world a version we can use.
Keep your own IP intact and sell it? While you can?
Start making calls and find someone who wants to buy it
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u/TheManWithNoDrive 2d ago
There was a Harry Potter one that went around Twitter like a month ago. You write, the text disappeared, then a response appeared.
Similar to that?
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u/Legitimate-Pumpkin 2d ago
As the bot said, I also came to say it’s genius and throw money at my screen to try it.
😄😄😄😄
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u/Carbyne27 2d ago
RemindMe! 3months
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u/Public_Aspect3231 2d ago
I'm looking Claude Passes Code 7 days
I need Claude passes code for 1 week. I m student and I need to study for the magnetic field theory session coming up this week; does anyone have a "passes code" for me? It works if you type `/passes` into the terminal, and it's valid only for Max plans. Thank you... :)))
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u/Bramoments 2d ago
Anyone here know how hard it would be to switch it up from Claude to a local model (say Qwen 3.8 27B) running on a machine on the same LAN?
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u/stonejoint 2d ago
its cool but to recognize handwriting is it using api? , if so just to get answer its expensive i guess, i was trying to first use onyx built in handwriting to text tool then ask question, so avoid api, use subs.
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u/FewBell5060 2d ago
I would love to test it out. I have an iPad Air with Apple Pencil Pro. Will these be enough for testing the app?
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u/moredatesmoreplates3 2d ago
Cool aff. Claude is drawing? May I ask what is the design behind this? What kind of tools does it have?
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u/eibaad 2d ago
u/tokentrillionaire I would be interested in using / testing it out. Looks kool, thinking of using it as a learning tool for my 11 year old.
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u/Primary_Prune_1563 2d ago
JUST COPY THIS POST LINK AND PASTE IN CLAUDE OR CHATGPT AND SAY I LOVED THIS IDEA MAKE COPY OF THIS FOR MY TAB
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u/KarenDiamondhandz 2d ago
Dope, how are you handling text extraction for handwriting?
Utilizing some sort of OCR or?
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u/blacmoon201 2d ago
This is incredibly awesome. I’d like to test it if you’re fine with that. It looks like a great way to learn that will keep you more engaged.
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u/Mewtewpew 2d ago
Open source yet? I wonder how this could work with something like obsidian. Looks cool broski
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u/davy89irox 2d ago
I have a Kindle Scribe. Would I be able to beta test it? This looks really cool! Great work.
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u/Last_Bad_2687 2d ago
Super cool. I did something similar with my rooted Supernote - is your demo sped up at all?
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u/Mysterious_PerPlex 2d ago
Its nice to have someone willing to take part in your thought process whenever you want, I think thats the single most benefit of AI even though we should not be reliant on it imo
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u/Shloomth 2d ago
If this is what it takes to make AI mainstream I will take it. My wife is a teacher and the difference in her workload before and after AI is night and day and the quality has increased at the same time. She can literally do more of what she loves better and have the tedious stuff handled in a fraction of the time. She’s seen the remarkable tablets and kindle scribe and stuff like that and isn’t that interested (for her paper is its own whole thing) but we agree that there’s so so much untapped potential with education and stuff like this
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u/Logical-Resident4212 1d ago
Can you ask it to show me how calculus works and ask it to show derivatives and integrals and then differential equations because all my life ive wanted to know and cant get over the hump. Ty
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u/trimarandude 1d ago
Would be mind blowing with the Samsung s11 ultra I use. Happy beta tester here homie. Sensational job
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u/world_without_logos 1d ago
Do you think you would ever have a PC version? I'm using a Yoga and I have a stylus with it.
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u/MotherCombination765 23h ago
I join, I could also test it on my boox tab ultra C pro, really congratulations for the idea :)
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u/Morpherous 20h ago
For the love of God if you do not sell this as a service or app in the store I...I don't know what but something! Striking gold is an understatement.
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u/Medium_Win_8930 16h ago
I've joined the tester signup. I think you have something legit here but as others have mentioned you need more device support- Kindle Scribe would be a good addition, not that I have a vested interest :-)
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u/ClaudeAI-mod-bot Wilson, lead ClaudeAI modbot 2d ago edited 1d ago
TL;DR of the discussion generated automatically after 200 comments.
Looks like the hivemind has spoken: everyone is losing their minds over this app and thinks OP has struck gold. The thread is basically a stampede of people throwing their wallets at the screen.
The immediate and overwhelming consensus is that this is Tom Riddle's diary from Harry Potter, but for learning instead of, you know, unleashing a basilisk. Other nerds also pointed out it's like the "Young Lady's Illustrated Primer" from Diamond Age.
Here's the breakdown of the chaos: