Second Lab

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Inspiration

I am working on a ISEF research project and this is the tool I wish I had while working.

What it does

Second Lab helps student researchers find places where their paper says more than their evidence supports. A student uploads a manuscript and code, or opens the built-in LeafLens demo, and receives findings connected to exact paper excerpts, code excerpts, methodology concerns, and supporting sources. It understands the work and identifies mistakes. Instead of just giving the answer it teaches them through research steps and helps them learn for next time,

How we built it

Second Lab is built with Next.js, React, TypeScript, Zod, and the OpenAI Responses API. The live review architecture is designed around GPT-5.6 with three focused reviewers: one compares claims with code, one examines literature and datasets, and one audits methods and evaluation. Their findings are reconciled into a structured claim-evidence-code map. I used Codex throughout development to inspect the original prototype, design the product architecture, implement the review and coaching routes, build the interface, debug edge cases, improve security, and create the testing and evaluation system. GPT-5.6 was used through the Codex workflow for reasoning, implementation review, and hardening the project.

Challenges we ran into

The biggest challenge was keeping Second Lab from becoming just a chatbot or a cheating partner. It was easy to simply show a corrected answer, but that would remove the part where the student actually learns. We instead built a defend-and-revise loop that keeps the correction hidden until the student explains the methodological problem and becomes smarter.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

I’m most proud that Second Lab became an education product instead of a generic AI reviewer. The LeafLens demo catches a metric mismatch, data leakage, an unsupported baseline claim, and a reproducibility issue, then turns each one into a short learning exercise.

What we learned

Education tools do not help while just giving answers. Through an interactive platform the student learns and becomes a better researcher and thats what actually helps.