first post

mimir - digital wishing well

For MLH’s Global Hack Week : API edition, I made a web app where you flip a coin and get a random piece of advice.

The idea came from throwing a coin into a well or fountain and expecting a fulfulled wish. It’s named mimir after a Mimir or Mim, a figure in Norse stories. In some stories he’s just a floating head in a well giving advice.

Try it out here!

Building it

Advice is fetched from the Advice Slip API when the coin is flipped. The pond uses jQuery Ripples for the water effect, it also responds to mouse interactions. The coin animation is adapted from a snippet i found online with a few changes to better fit this project.

The takeaway

  1. The Advice Slip API is a fun one to build around.

  2. Visuals are important. Most of the experince is carried by how this app looks. It’s a very simple concept so without the visuals it would just be a button the fetches text.

  3. Shipping something small and finished feels better than improving something that never ships.

Next

I want to make the coin “throwable” on mobile, where a user can drag and release the coin into the pond.

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