From a teacher’s text to a classroom app in 30 minutes

How a first-grade teacher’s problem (a class that gets too loud) became Don’t Wake the Puppy, a classroom noise app, in about 30 minutes with AI. The same steps work for any problem your family spots.

Who

For everyone

Time

5-minute read

You’ll make

A way to turn any everyday problem into something you build

Tinkertable started with a text. A friend who teaches first grade wrote: her class gets too loud, and nothing she tried was working for long. Could AI help?

Thirty minutes later, she had a sleeping puppy on her classroom screen. When the room stays calm, the puppy sleeps. When it gets too loud, the puppy wakes up. Her six-year-olds started shushing each other to keep it asleep.

That page grew into Don’t Wake the Puppy, now used by teachers with a whole cast of sleeping friends. But the interesting part isn’t the puppy. It’s the four steps that got there, because anyone in your family can use them.

1. Notice a real problem

Not “I want to build an app.” A specific problem, for a specific person: a class of first graders that gets too loud. Good problems are everywhere once you start looking: arguments over whose turn it is, forgotten chores, a morning routine that falls apart.

2. Describe it clearly

The first prompt explained who it was for, what should happen, and what “done” looked like:

Build a simple web page for a first-grade classroom. It shows a cute puppy sleeping. It uses the computer’s microphone to measure how loud the room is, but never records anything. If the room stays under a noise level the teacher can adjust, the puppy keeps sleeping. If it gets too loud, the puppy wakes up. Big, simple controls a teacher can use from across the room.

3. Build it, then try it for real

The first version worked, but real kids found what didn’t: the puppy woke too easily when someone dropped a book. A slider for the sensitivity fixed it. Every “that’s not quite right” became one plain-English request to change it.

4. Keep improving it with the people who use it

Teachers asked for more animals, for holidays and for their school mascot. Each idea was one more conversation with AI. That’s the real skill: not writing code, but listening, describing and testing.

Try it with your family

Ask everyone at dinner: “What’s one small thing that bugs you every week?” Pick one, describe it using who, what, details and done, and build it together. In Tinkertable, your coach walks you through those exact steps.

See the puppy in action at dontwakethepuppy.com.

By Tom Kieley, founder of Tinkertable. Updated November 9, 2026.