Animal Care

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Inspiration

Medical procedures, like MRI scans and cast removals, are anxiety inducing events for children as they introduce the unknown to a young mind. A 2022 study mitigated this problem by creating a health game with the intent to reduce 4-6 year old's apprehensions on their anesthesia procedure. Such successes in turn further encouraged our team to continue pursing a similar feat. We wanted to implement this idea on a larger scale, specifically with more medical scenarios. We would like to complete this by allowing a child to communicate with a group of AI-powered NPCs and learn about any medical procedure they may feel intimidated by.

What it does

We take in a child's name and procedure that they are doing and personalize three different chatbots to give the child information about their procedure before, during, and after. The chatbots are able to act accordingly to their unique personalities while providing accurate and reassuring information--they can even refer the player to each other!

How we built it

We used Unity and the ChatGPT API. Using a system of scriptable objects and game managers, we were able to serialize multiple personalities and feed the ChatGPT API all the necessary information to create consistently intractable characters. We made sure to polish our game through the use of all relevant unity systems such as extensive UI elements, scene transitions, and input boxes.

Challenges we ran into

We initially faced many issues setting up Unity on various operating systems which stunted our initial momentum. We further needed to familiarize ourself with Git, and the procedures necessary to work successfully as a team. Finally, 80% of our members had never used Unity before, and therefore had to climb over an initial learning curve. We had to become well versed in a wide variety of disciplines, such as art, music, and software, in order to deliver this project.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud of our interface as well as coordinating the sound effects to coincide with animal movements. The pixel drawings are consistent which add to the appeal of the project, too. The main character’s ability to interact with the different animals in Animal Care was a major accomplishment as it epitomized our ability to integrate various parts of the program.

What we learned

As a team we learned the true powers of Unity, specifically in regards to tile mapping and chat bot responses with ChatGPT. We pushed our limits by personalizing the chatbots to the target audience through learning API integration and C#.

What's next for Animal Care

The Waiting Room plans to incorporate more character interactions - for example mini games and the ability for artificial intelligence to understand a wider range of prompts. We would also like to create more 2D pixel art to make the space more welcoming for our target audience of children.