SimplyMath

Inspiration

We were inspired to create SimplyMath due to the shift to online learning. Many assignments and examinations have been forced online, and as engineering students, we have personally had a lot of difficulty creating and sharing equation-heavy documents.

What it does

SimplyMath uses the same open source library as WebAssign and Desmos, known as MathQuill, to provide a WYSIWYG editor for equations. These equations, once created, can then be copied to your clipboard, inserted onto the webpage you have open, or saved to your filesystem. It makes creating and editing equations a breeze.

How we built it

We opted to build a Google Chrome extension, since it gave us the most flexibility in terms of APIs. This also enabled us to integrate our tool with any website that accepts LaTeX or PNG files as input.

Challenges we ran into

None of us had built a Google Chrome extension before, and the message passing procedures between open tabs and the browser action code took a lot of time to work out.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We think that our extension makes editing equations significantly easier for students and professors alike. We hope it will save many people a lot of time in the long run when trying to communicate mathematical equations.

What we learned

Integrating many different APIs together can result in some of the most interesting bugs. As well, we learned a lot about what Google Chrome extensions are capable of doing.