Time Travel Chat

Inspiration

We wanted to make history fun and interactive by letting anyone chat with legendary figures from the past, ask them questions, and get instant, in-character answers.

What it does

Time Travel Chat lets users select or search for a historical figure, ask them questions, and receive concise, historically accurate responses. Users can react with emojis, edit, copy, or delete messages, and export or share conversations.

How we built it

We built a Next.js app with a modern, mobile-friendly UI. The backend uses the Perplexity AI API to generate responses, with prompts tailored for historical accuracy and brevity. The app is deployed on Netlify for easy access and scalability.

Challenges we ran into

• Ensuring the AI only references knowledge from the figure’s lifetime.
• Keeping responses concise and in-character.
• Handling image assets and fallback logic for many figures.
• Making the UI intuitive and visually appealing across devices.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

• Seamless, iMessage-style chat with emoji reactions and message controls.
• Dynamic figure selection with search and custom names.
• A polished welcome experience and clear onboarding.
• Fast, accurate, and historically grounded AI responses.

What we learned

• How to prompt AI for strict historical context and brevity.
• Building a robust, user-friendly chat interface in Next.js.
• Deploying and managing environment variables securely on Netlify.

What's next for Time Travel Chat

• Add voice support and text-to-speech for more immersive chats.
• Let users save, revisit, and share favorite conversations.
• Expand the figure database with bios, timelines, and more images.
• Add quiz and game modes for educational fun.

Built With

• framer-motion
• netlify
• next.js
• perplexity-ai-api
• react-markdown
• reacthot
• tailwind-css
• typescript