Ada Intro/Input Screen
Ada Response/Resource Screen

Inspiration

I was inspired to create this project because I find that there is people who do not always feel comfortable reaching out to professionals or other people for mental health support. The project is a proof of concept for something that could be much bigger if it were to utilize AI and other modern day technology.

What it does

My project is a mental health chatbot that uses a Java Swing GUI to prompt the user for responses and has a comforting bot named Ada reiterate their feelings and direct them to resources if needed. Ada asks the users 3 questions; In one word, describe how you are feeling , How long have these feelings persisted? , Have these feelings made day to day life difficult?. Ada than takes the responses and adds them to a text area, than prompts the user if they need additional mental health resources. If the user selects yes they are taken to the CDC website for mental health, and if they select no the application closes.

How I built it

I built this project completely in Java using Swing, a GUI library.

Challenges I ran into

With a beginner understanding of java as a language I ran into lots of problems. I found it hard to understand the swing syntax without an excessive amount of documentation. I also struggled to implement everything I had planned for the project in the allotted time but also due to my lack of experience in the language.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

I am proud that I was able to create a decent looking GUI that stands as a version of what the project could become. I also am impressed by my ability to take on a challenge and keep it until I am satisfied with the result.

What I learned

I learned lots on this journey for example , the java swing library, java syntax and how to utilize online resources such as stackOverflow. I plan to take the skills I learned from this event and translate them into bigger things for my studies and personal projects.

What's next for Ada Mental Health Chatbot

As a hackathon is a short term event its no suprise that there is lack of features in the application. I plan on working on this project beyond the event and implementing some key features such as; Reworking the GUI (JavaFX) , Adding AI intergration , a more expansive list of resources , package as an app , backend , among other things. These added features will most definitley make it possible for the project to reach new levels of useability, producutivity and scalability.