Discord Encouragement Bot

The bot in action

Inspiration:

Mental health is an issue that is not widely spoken of and as a result, there are not a lot of resources to take help from. I observed that during the pandemic, many people suffered from mental health problems and were embarrassed of speaking about it. So, I created this Discord bot that provides you with inspirational quotes from famous people and also lifts your spirits when you are feeling negative.

What it does:

The bot detects if you are not feeling good and then provides encouraging words to make you feel better.

How I built it:

I built it by using different Python libraries, namely discord, random, requests, JSON, and os.

Challenges I ran into:

Initially, I didn't take into account that whenever the user wrote something, the bot should immediately reply to it. As a result, the program was not running and I was getting errors in it. Then I searched online and found the concept of Python decorators which I then used in the code and the problem was solved!

Accomplishments that I am proud of:

I am proud of creating my first ever bot but more than that, I am proud that I took a step, however small it may be, in addressing the issue of mental health. I hope that people become more vocal about it, only then awareness can be created and numerous lives can be saved in time.

What I learned:

I learned how to get data online using the requests module in Python and load it using the JSON library. I also learned what a Python decorator is and how it can be used!

What's next for Discord Encouragement Bot:

I am going to learn databases, particularly, MySQL and connect this bot to a database. Doing so will provide users with the option to add custom encouraging phrases for the bot and provide a much-enhanced experience. I also plan to learn the NLTK module in Python and use that knowledge to train the bot and respond to different user messages. Last but not the least, my ultimate aim is to create a Discord server where people can communicate with the bot and keep themselves positive!