Pitch Perfect

Inspiration

Public speaking is one of the most common anxieties people experience, even when they fully understand their material. This gap between knowledge and delivery affects confidence, academic performance, and overall mental well being. Our team wanted to create something that genuinely supports people as they practice, instead of relying on unrealistic tricks like imagining the audience in their underwear or rehearsing in front of a mirror that cannot give real feedback. We built PitchPerfect, an AI powered presentation coach centered around the Gemini API. PitchPerfect gives supportive, real time guidance on tone, pacing, clarity, filler words, pauses, and emotional delivery. The goal is not to judge users but to help them grow at their own pace. Throughout the project, we discovered how meaningful consistent, personalized feedback can be for people who struggle with presentation anxiety.

What it does

PitchPerfect listens to a user’s presentation and provides real time AI coaching on

tone
pacing
emotional expression
clarity
filler words
pauses and hesitations
eye movement and contact

Users can record presentations, get instant feedback, download a summary PDF, and review past sessions to track confidence building over time.

How we built it

React with Vite frontend for video and audio capture
Node.js + Express backend for logs, uploads, and PDF generation
Custom audio analysis for pacing, tone, clarity, pauses, and filler words
Gemini API to interpret processed audio and generate short supportive coaching messages
A scoring system that evaluates progress based on Gemini feedback
MongoDB + local storage for user history

Challenges we ran into

One of our biggest challenges was finding APIs capable of processing audio and video quickly enough to provide meaningful feedback in real time. We also spent significant time refining our prompts so Gemini would deliver concise, emotionally supportive feedback under ten words. Ensuring that audio analysis ran smoothly without lag was another major hurdle. Coordinating multiple features including recording, feedback generation, scoring, login, PDF exporting, and history tracking within a short timeframe required extensive teamwork. Building an interface that remained simple, accessible, and calming was also a priority and challenge. Despite these difficulties, PitchPerfect grew into a gentle, encouraging AI coach designed to help people overcome presentation anxiety and build lasting confidence.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud of creating a fully functioning AI powered presentation coach in under 36 hours and integrating the Gemini API in a way that feels human, supportive, and easy to understand. We designed a complete flow from recording to reviewing to downloading summaries and built a user experience centered around mental well being rather than pressure or criticism. Most importantly, we created a tool that genuinely helps users practice and improve with confidence.

What we learned

Throughout the project, we learned how to integrate Gemini effectively for tone, pacing, and clarity analysis and how to structure prompts that produce consistent, short feedback messages. We also learned how to parse and format audio data into the optimal structure for the model we used. This project taught us the importance of emotional sensitivity when designing AI feedback and how even small improvements can create noticeable boosts in user confidence.

What's next for Pitch Perfect

Moving forward, we plan to introduce more advanced voice emotion recognition, AI generated warmup drills, and multi language support. We also hope to expand our system to include body recognition, allowing PitchPerfect to understand posture, gestures, and physical engagement in addition to voice. This would give users an even more complete coaching experience. We also want to add optional slide analysis, allow users to share progress with mentors or teachers, and develop a mobile version for quick practice on the go. PitchPerfect is only the beginning, and we aim to continue growing it into the most supportive and accessible AI presentation coach available.