Technical Architecture of Tencent's Penguin Smart Pen Classroom

Tencent's "Penguin Smart Pen Classroom" leverages an intelligent dot-matrix pen equipped with a miniature camera sensor to capture handwritten content. The pen’s data is processed using computer‑vision, AI, and big‑data technologies to enable automated homework grading, real‑time board sharing, and personalized learning analytics.

The system is divided into three relatively independent subsystems: a pre‑class "question‑set generation" module, an in‑class "interactive teaching and quiz" module, and a post‑class "online grading and personalized report" module. Each subsystem maintains its own user identity while sharing a common core service for data coordination.

Technical selection : After comparing HTTP and gRPC protocols, the architecture adopts gRPC for its higher transmission efficiency and security, as the core services do not require browser support. Tencent Cloud components such as CVM, CFS, ElasticSearch, CDB (Redis/MySQL/SQLServer), and CMQ are used to provide high availability, low maintenance, and scalable storage.

Core service architecture : A GRPC micro‑service cluster registered with ETCD acts as the central data processing hub. It handles user authentication via a login component, stores data in CDB/CFS/ElasticSearch, and publishes messages to CMQ for downstream processing.

Key technical challenges :

User identity linking across three subsystems, solved by a unified login component that issues a token and shares user information via gRPC.

Data interaction between subsystems, addressed by the core service acting as a "data warehouse manager" that aggregates and distributes data.

Reverse mapping of data structures to avoid repetitive field‑by‑field assignments, implemented through dynamic type detection at runtime.

The solution enables real‑time capture of board content, AI‑driven automatic grading of multiple‑choice, fill‑in‑the‑blank, and subjective questions, and generation of personalized error‑book reports for teachers and students.

Since its launch, the platform has been deployed in over 6,000 schools across more than 40 education bureaus in China, demonstrating the scalability and effectiveness of the cloud‑native architecture.