The Story Behind MarkBot
A tale of terror, procrastination, and eventual automation
Hi, I'm the Creator
An aspiring teacher with a deep, irrational fear of marking papers. Nice to meet you.
It Was 11:47 PM on a Sunday
There I was, staring at a stack of 200 Year 9 History essays. The topic? "Explain the causes of World War I." The reality? 200 variations of "Some guy got shot and everyone got mad."
My red pen trembled in my hand. My coffee had gone cold. My will to live was questionable at best.
The Horror Was Real 😱
You see, I didn't become a teacher because I love spending my evenings deciphering handwriting that looks like a spider dipped in ink had a seizure across the page. I became a teacher because I wanted to inspire young minds, watch light bulbs go off, and occasionally confiscate phones.
But nobody warned me about The Marking.
Every teacher knows the feeling. That mountain of papers growing taller on your desk. The guilt of watching Netflix while they sit there, judging you. The Sunday night panic when you realize Year 11 mocks need to be returned tomorrow.
The Breaking Point
One fateful night, after marking my 47th paper (only 153 to go!), I had an epiphany. Actually, it was more like a caffeine-induced hallucination, but let's call it an epiphany for dramatic effect.
"What if... I could make a robot do this for me?"
And thus, MarkBot was born. Not from a place of innovation or entrepreneurial spirit, but from sheer, unadulterated fear of red pen.
If You Can't Beat 'Em, Automate 'Em
I spent weeks building MarkBot instead of, you know, actually marking papers. Some might call that procrastination. I call it "investing in future productivity." (My therapist calls it "avoidance behavior," but what does she know about 200 essays on WWI?)
The result? A tool that marks papers while I do literally anything else. Watch TV. Sleep. Question my career choices. The possibilities are endless.
Why I Built This (The Serious Part)
Real talk: Teachers are heroes who don't get paid enough, don't sleep enough, and definitely don't get thanked enough. If MarkBot can give even one teacher their Sunday evening back, if it can help one burnt-out educator spend more time actually teaching (or, you know, having a life), then all those sleepless nights building this thing were worth it.
The Bottom Line
MarkBot exists because one teacher was too scared to face The Stack™ alone. Now you don't have to either.
Go forth and teach. Let the robot handle the red pen.
— A Teacher Who Still Gets Nightmares About Unmarked Papers 🎓