Inspiration
Our inspiration for EduGuide AI came from the common struggles college students face with managing study plans, organizing notes, and finding reliable, quick explanations for complex topics. We wanted to build a single, intelligent platform that could act as a personalized study companion, making academic life more organized and less stressful
What it does
EduGuide AI is a full-stack web application that provides a suite of AI-powered tools for students. It includes:
- General AI: A smart chatbot that answers subject-specific questions and provides relevant resource links.
- Flashcard Generator: Automatically creates interactive, digital flashcards from any text.
- Quiz Creator: Instantly generates multiple-choice quizzes to help students test their knowledge.
- Smart Summarizer: Condenses long articles or notes into concise, bullet-point summaries.
- Semester Planner: Generates a personalized study schedule based on a student's semester start and exam dates.
- Persistent Chat History: Uses Firebase to save and retrieve chat conversations, so no data is ever lost.
How we built it
We built the application using a full-stack approach. The frontend is a single-page application built with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, which communicates with a Python backend. We used the Flask framework to handle API requests and route data between the frontend and the AI models. For our AI capabilities, we integrated the OpenAI API to power features like the General AI, Flashcards, and Quizzes. We also used Google Cloud Firestore as our database to ensure that all chat history is saved and accessible across sessions. We used Git and GitHub for version control to collaborate efficiently during the hackathon.
Challenges we ran into
Our biggest challenge was integrating the AI models and the database. We initially tried to use the Gemini API, but we faced persistent 404 Not Found errors for various models, which we later determined were likely due to regional availability issues. This forced us to quickly pivot and reconfigure our backend to use the OpenAI API, which was a significant time crunch. We also ran into a FileNotFoundError when trying to connect to Firebase, which we solved by carefully managing our file paths to ensure our application could correctly locate the service account key.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We are most proud of successfully creating a functional and integrated full-stack application within a 24-hour timeframe. We managed to seamlessly integrate two separate API systems, OpenAI for our AI features and Firebase for data persistence which made our application much more robust and professional. We are also proud of the user-friendly interface we designed, including features like the interactive flashcards and a dark mode, which significantly improves the user experience.
What we learned
This hackathon taught us the importance of having backup plans for our technology choices. When our initial AI plan failed, we learned to quickly adapt and solve a complex problem under pressure. We also gained valuable experience in debugging real-world API errors and managing file paths in a multi-directory project. This project strengthened our skills in full-stack development and professional collaboration.
What's next for EduGuide-AI
In the future, we plan to add more features to EduGuide AI to make it even more powerful. Our next steps include:
- User Authentication: Implementing a login system to allow users to have their own private study spaces.
- Progress Tracking: Adding a dashboard to help students visualize their learning progress over time.
- Mobile App: Developing a mobile version of EduGuide AI for on-the-go studying.
- Enhanced AI Tools: Integrating advanced features like a grammar checker and a citation generator to help students with academic writing.
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