Show HN: TinySolvers – Personalized Math Word Problems for Kids (tinysolvers.com)

2 points by qedlab ↗ HN
Hi HN,

I built TinySolvers (https://tinysolvers.com) as a side project to make math more engaging for kids.

There are plenty of generic math worksheets online, but I wanted something more personal to help connect the math to the student. TinySolvers generates customized math word problems using a child’s name, favorite nouns (dinosaurs, pizza, unicorns), verbs (jumping, exploring), and a selected operation and difficulty level.

For example:

“Emma found 7 dinosaurs in the forest. She discovered 5 more hiding behind a tree. How many dinosaurs did Emma find in all?”

You can download printable PDFs or use an interactive mode where kids solve problems one at a time with immediate feedback. It’s currently focused on early elementary arithmetic (K-5).

Initially, I tried a large library of predefined word problems with string substitution, but that hit limits quickly. I experimented with Word2Vec to expand vocabulary (e.g., dinosaurs → T-Rex, Triceratops), but eventually landed on carefully constrained LLM generation. The AI only generates narrative text and all math is validated deterministically before being shown to kids.

Tech details:

- Go backend with Gin, HTMX frontend - Supports local LLMs via Ollama or OpenAI - Single binary deployment - PDFs rendered via Cairo

I’d love feedback, especially from parents or educators. What other problem types would be useful?

2 comments

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Why does it ask for the student's gender?
Really just the grammatical correctness in the generated text (pronouns and possessives). Early versions produced awkward sentences when the model guessed incorrectly. It is a good point I didn't think about regarding making it optional to input.