East Bay Sophomore Builds Blockwork Site for Safe Teen Chores

Aaditya Kamat, a 10th-grade student at American High School in Fremont, has designed and launched Blockwork (blockwork.online), a web platform built to connect teenagers looking to earn spending money with neighbors needing help with household chores under strict parental oversight, according to a profile in Tri-City Voice.

Kamat told Tri-City Voice that the project grew out of a common neighborhood mismatch: local teenagers wanted ways to earn money, while neighbors needed assistance with small tasks such as raking leaves, washing cars, walking dogs, or tutoring younger children, but lacked a trusted platform beyond knocking on doors or posting on neighborhood forums.

Parental Approval, Dual Sign-Offs, and Stripe Payments

After taking introductory programming classes, Kamat built Blockwork’s account, data, and payment workflows around safety rules designed for teenagers, parents, and neighbors alike.

“I started by imagining everything that could go wrong for a teen, a parent or a neighbor,” Kamat said. “And then made a rule for each one.”

On Blockwork, no teenager can register for an account without a parent’s approval, and parents retain direct access to monitor the account. All payments are processed through Stripe, and funds are held until both the teenager and the neighbor sign off that the job has been completed.

Built-In State Child Labor Law Safeguards

To ensure legal compliance, Kamat researched state-by-state child labor regulations and contacted state labor departments, coding the platform to follow the stricter rule whenever laws were ambiguous.

“For example,” Kamat told Tri-City Voice, “teens under 16 can’t take jobs with power mowers, and no one under 18 can do ladder, roof or driving jobs. The app also tracks hours so teens stay within the limits for their age.”