Conversations With History

History isn't boring, maybe we're just teaching it wrong. Have personal conversations with Lincoln, da Vinci, and others using ElevenLabs voice AI. Multilingual. Interactive. Inspired learning.

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Inspiration

I created a poster collection of 100+ historical figures for history classrooms a year ago. It's always been a vision of mine to transform them into an interactive experience but I had zero technical skills to bring that vision to life. This hackathon gave me the opportunity to go for it! I have no coding experience but was able to combine Bolt & Eleven Labs to build this fully functioning app that brought my vision to life!

What it works

Users can browse a library of historical figures and pick any they are interested in. They'll arrive on a biography page with a brief video message from the historical figure welcoming them. From there they can use the Eleven Labs conversational AI to start a conversation and ask the historical figure anything they like, leading to an engaging conversation and window to learn about the past in a new way. Each figure is also fluent in French, German, Hindi, & Spanish, allowing history to be accessible to more people around the world.

How I built it

Eleven labs is the heartbeat of this app, and what truly brings it to life. I leveraged their conversational AI feature and curated voices for each of the historical figures. The ability to let them speak in multiple languages makes learning history accessible to more curious minds around the world. Bolt was used to create the web app and did a beautiful one-shot at the marketing page as well. The artifacts like the images were created using midjourney, and the welcome videos were created using HeyGen image to video with an Eleven Labs TTS overlay using their new V3 model. When I bring it all together the project comes to life.

Challenges I ran into

Along the way there were many challenges as a non-technical person, but they all led to amazing learning experiences. When i started I had no idea what supabase was or how to use a database, but have now gained some new skills. I now feel comfortable using supabase as a content management system which allows me to easily add more content and manage the videos and eleven labs agents. I also have never touched github in my life but now have learned the value of version control after losing a few projects due to lack of version control and having things go off the rails.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

I set out to build something impactful, but what I'm most proud of is how my technical capabilities have grown through hands-on experiences. Of course being able to build a working app that has the potential to spark a renewed interest in history feels amazing as well.

What I learned

I've learned so much, from what how to integrate and API safely, to building for scale using supabase as a content management system. I think of the bolt subscription as an investment in my eduction, and it has paid dividends in my learning journey. Every time I set out to build something I hit an unexpected roadblock that leads to me learn new skills. Loving this vibe coding journey!

What's next for Conversations With History

I keep telling myself that these technologies are the dumbest they will ever be. So with that in mind, it's only a matter of real-time before interactive video from an image is possible, at a price point that can make the venture profitable. I'll keep building the foundation and adapt as the technology adapts. As someone that's always had a builder mentality but lacked the technical skills to implement those ideas, I'm excited for what the future holds.

Built With

  • bolt.new
  • eleven-labs
  • supabase
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