Ng Heidi@Heidi

Big Bear and Little Fox is an AI-powered educational game for children aged 3–7, designed to combine emotional learning, language development, and interactive storytelling in a safe and engaging environment. Set in a seasonal forest world, the game follows two characters on story-driven adventures. Children complete simple tasks that help them recognize emotions, solve problems, and explore social interactions. The experience is designed to build empathy, confidence, and early cognitive skills through play. To create more natural interaction, we use AI characters powered by Inworld AI, enabling dynamic emotional responses instead of static dialogue. We also integrate voice interaction via Vapi, allowing children to speak directly with characters while supporting bilingual learning in English and Chinese. The system is built with a modular architecture. Prototypes and interaction flows were designed in Figma, and LlamaIndex is used to provide contextual knowledge and simple Q&A during gameplay. A key innovation is the integration of nano-payments. Instead of subscriptions, parents can unlock individual stories or features through small, flexible payments. We are integrating Alsa and Circle to support low-cost transactions, including stablecoin payments, enabling a transparent pay-as-you-go model with parental control. In the future, we plan to expand story content, improve AI interaction, and build a creator ecosystem where educators can publish content supported by the same nano-payment system.

In this hybrid hackathon powered by Arc and Circle, developers will build the next generation of Agentic economic applications using Circle’s Nanopayments infrastructure with settlement on Arc in USDC. For the first time, high-frequency, usage-based transactions between users, APIs, and AI agents can operate without gas overhead eroding margin. Arc provides stablecoin-native settlement with predictable, dollar-denominated USDC fees and deterministic, sub-second finality — enabling real-time coordination and economically viable per-action pricing at scale. 📅 April 20 – 26, 2026 • Apr 20 – 25 (Online): Submit projects by Apr 25. • Apr 25 (On-site Build – SF, CA): Teams refine projects. • Apr 26 (On-site Demos & Awards – SF, CA): Live pitches & winners announced. Get guidance from Arc and Circle experts through on-site support. 📍 On-site Venue (April 25-26): MindsDB SF AI Collective 3154 17th St, San Francisco, California, USA 🤝 Go solo or team up, it's your flow. 🏆 Compete for a $15,000+ Prize Pool. 📍 Please note: If approved for the on-site experience, you’ll also have the opportunity to showcase your project live. Travel and accommodation will not be covered. 🧑🏻‍💻 Secure your spot now – sign up before the Kick-Off Stream!