Ankra: The Note App Built on the Feynman Technique

We built Ankra because most study apps stop exactly where the work starts.

You sit through the lecture. You take the notes. And then the note just sits there, a tidy record of something you have not actually learned yet. Rereading it feels like studying. It mostly is not.

Ankra is a note app that tests you back.

Take your notes

Write them the way you already do: headings, highlights, tables, images, and real maths that renders properly instead of sitting there as plain text. Link one note to another with double brackets so you can point at an explanation instead of copying it into five documents.

Or let the AI draft them. Point it at a photo of a textbook page, a PDF or Word file, a Google Docs or Slides link, a YouTube video, or a recording of the lecture you just sat through. What you get back is a real note you can edit, not a locked summary.

Turn them into decks

Any note becomes flashcards or multiple choice quizzes in a tap. Cloze deletions too, if that is how you think.

Every card is scheduled with the SM-2 spaced repetition algorithm. Cards you struggle with come back sooner, cards you know get pushed out by weeks or months, and the app tells you what is due, so you never have to guess what to study today.

Already have Anki decks? Import your .apkg file and bring your cards with you.

Then prove you know it

This is the part we care about most.

Pick a topic and explain it back in your own words, out loud or in writing, as if you were teaching a friend. No notes, no peeking.

Ankra grades what you said against your own notes and splits it three ways: what you nailed, what you got wrong, and what you missed entirely. That last one is the one that matters. You can catch your own mistakes, but you cannot notice the thing you never thought to mention.

Then every gap becomes a flashcard, and spaced repetition takes it from there.

This is the Feynman Technique, and it has been known to work for decades. The problem was always that doing it alone is awkward. Who checks your explanation? That is the part we built.

When the exam has a date

Add the exam and attach the decks it covers. Ankra works out how many cards a day you need, keeps a revision buffer before the date instead of cramming into it, and rescues reviews that spaced repetition would otherwise have scheduled for after you sit the paper.

The rest of it

• Works offline. Notes open and save with no connection, then sync across iPhone, iPad, Mac, Android and the web once you are back online.
• Study together. Share a single deck, or start a Study Circle where your whole group builds and fact-checks decks together.
• Media on any card. Photos from your gallery or camera, plus recorded and uploaded audio, synced everywhere.

Where this started

Ankra began on the web and came to iOS and Android in December 2025, as an AI flashcard app. Notes, Feynman mode, quizzes, collaborative decks and the exam planner all came afterwards, because the longer we used it the clearer it got that the cards were never really the point. Understanding the material was.

We are learners too, and we are building this for all of us. If you have thoughts, feedback, or just want to say hi, reach out via email.