Ratheror - Interactive Event Organizing Buddy

Inspiration

I was playing this game Everwing in Facebook Messenger and I was very impressed with the integration and seamless interaction on my messenger. I didn't install anything, I just started playing. Chat Bots should not be treated as a boring system but a middleman that connects everything in a more organic and natural way.

I hate installing app events! It waste a lot of resources for my phone and sometimes it doesn't give me the benefit that I need. I created ratheror chatbot because while other people treat chatbot as a system, I treat this chatbot as a event organizer but located inside a messenger. No more installing of this useless mobile apps, just go to your favorite messenger and start interacting with events that my chatbot handles!

What it does

It is an interactive classroom, conference, event, dungeons and dragons, meetups, and even Tech Dates (Yes that happens). He is that wingman that you love to be with in the events but instead of buying him/her tickets, allotting budget for his food and drinks, we give you a cute and cuddly chatbot easily accessible on your Cisco Spark.

No Need to Install, just start Chatting!

Things it can do:

Send Polls or Surveys to your users so you can get general concensus about your events. For a classroom setting, you can check if your students is in touch with your lecture by checking if they answered correctly.
Send files to every participant in your event. No more email hassles no more downloading of apps just to download a presentation file
View Audience Statistics inside your event.
Starting a quiz for your students to learn if they are catching up with your lecture.

Things it can't do yet

Steal your girl yet
Destroy humankind yet
Create Interactive games but added on my feature bucket
More elaborate contest that uses the chatbot stack technology
World Domination

How I built it

I built it using Cisco Spark together with Botkit. I may have 5 days of porting it from Amazon Lex but thankfully, Botkit is well documented and integrated well with Cisco Spark. 10/10 will advertise botkit with Cisco Spark with my fellow developers if they are willing to learn on how to create a chatbot

Challenges I ran into

Since I was only notified 5 days before the deadline, I made all the effort I can to master all the kinks of Cisco Spark together with Botkit. I had an existing Chatbot before but it is not written on any of these technology.

Storage on Botkit also requires a lot of effort in implementing but thankfully everything on botkit's side are well explained..

But the structure of Cisco Spark and its documentation are really great!

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

Finishing a working prototype within 5 days using a new technology was one of my biggest achivement in this project.

What I learned

I learned a new technology and approach in creating chatbots. Cisco Spark also have a lot of potential in terms of collaboration because these bots are actually easier to make and the virality of these bots are sometimes insane.

What's next for Ratheror - Interactive Event Organizing Buddy

I will be creating a full fledge Course Teaching Chatbot using the basic functionality of this chatbot. I think that having a chatbot lead you into learning a new technology is a great way to give an interactive and exciting way to learn!