Heirloom
Heirloom turns a grandparent's stories into a 3D world their grandchild can explore and build in.
Core trick
Converts a grandparent's recorded story into a 3D world, then passes the child's built additions back as the prompt for the next story.
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Description
Heirloom turns a grandparent's stories into a 3D world their grandchild can explore and build in. Grandpa tells a story: a memory, a dream, or something he makes up. That story becomes an explorable world. The child adds something of their own, like a bridge, a garden or a treehouse, and names it. A warm message goes back to Grandpa ("Leia built a bridge to your village!"), and his reply becomes the next story.
The problem: many children are lonely and hooked on fast rewards, and many grandparents are lonely too. Heirloom turns a phone call into a place they share. It isn't a game with levels or streaks, and it isn't an AI friend. The only reward is the person on the other side answering. The learning happens inside the building: counting the planks, reading the sign, naming what you made, including in Grandpa's own language.
Heirloom grows out of The Primer, our working AI storybook for children ages 4 to 6. It reads aloud, listens while the child reads, has a magic pencil for tracing letters, adapts each lesson to the child's skills, and has parent accounts with consent. It has 357 unit tests. Today we added the Argon World Builder and the first Heirloom world: a Marble 3D world at the center, with the child's build-and-reply loop around it.
README excerpt
# Heirloom
*"The world Grandpa and I built."*
Every story a grandparent tells (a memory, a dream, something made up) becomes a world their grandchild can
explore and build in. Each thing the child builds goes back to the grandparent, who answers with the next story.
## The loop
1. **Grandpa tells.** Any story, by voice. An AI interviewer asks a few gentle questions ("What did the house smell
like? Who was there?") and the story becomes a 3D world the child can zoom into and explore.
2. **I build.** The child adds something of their own: a bridge, a house, a garden. The learning lives in the
building: counting the planks, reading the sign, naming what they made, in Grandpa's language too.
3. **Grandpa answers.** "Mia built a bridge to your village!" goes back to Grandpa, and his reply is the next story.
Tap anything in the world and you hear Grandpa's own voice telling that part.
**Not** a game with levels or streaks, **not** an AI friend, **not** a chat. The world is a conversation between
generations, and it is measured by time together, not time on screen.
## Why
Children are lonely and hooked on fast rewards, and so many grandparents are lonely too. Heirloom turns a phone call
into a shared place, and the only reward is the person on the other side answering.
## What exists today
Heirloom grows out of **The Primer**, a working AI storybook for children 4 to 6 (the full build spec is `CLAUDE.md`).
It is built, tested (373 unit tests, end-to-end runs in hea