TutorNetwork

Inspiration

Have you ever needed help in a subject but didn't really want to go out of your way to ask for it? Maybe your school just didn't offer the resources you required or the subjects you were actually interested in? Have you wanted to get volunteer hours from tutoring but weren't able to? Tutor network solves any and all of these problems for future generations - underprivileged kids, schools in rural areas, or learners looking to get ahead.

What it does

Tutor Network is an all-in-one web platform for professional/peer tutors and all students to chat with and have virtual meetings with one another. Every student user is prompted to fill out a short questionnaire so that we can ai to recommend specific subjects and topics for them. Users can then either choose a recommended subject or click on any of the core subjects. Say they click on Math, it takes them to the Math subject page where they can specify between subjects like Algebra or Geometry. For each one, it shows free resources as well as all the tutors and timeslots available. Clicking on a tutor then allows you to sign up and have a meeting with them.

How we built it

We spent quite a while storyboarding all of the pages out on whiteboards so that the workflow would be easier once we started programming. So we started by asking ourselves what do I want to see as a student and as a tutor. How we can we streamline what student and tutor needs our into a similar dashboard. So after a few hours of running through control flow, UI Layout, and many iterations of everything together we started building the core features. Dashboard and Session Page, which gave us all of the surrounding features inside of those components.

Challenges we ran into

Getting the session page fully implemented was probably the hardest part of the project, needing to have the live video call, as well as the live whiteboard and notes, on the same page at the same time. Adding in all of the personalization was also a challenge; we ended up having to mostly prompt AI with questionnaire responses to get recommended subjects and recommended free study resources.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

An all-in-one platform that supports learning while streamlining finding courses based on current learning needs, connecting tutors with students, and, at its core, hosting a live learning session that stores notes for later reference and gives an AI overview/summary of those notes.

What we learned

Connecting Ideas is hard. Being specific about functional layouts and how we want the user experience to be is something that is very important to the feel of the platform. We know we aren't reinventing the wheel or building a groundbreaking new app, but we wanted to focus on how well we can build this platform for a user as both a tutor and a student. We also all had things we wanted to learn individually. One of us had never programmed React before and wanted to learn, one of us had never really used databases before, and one of us had never implemented AI agents.

What's next for Tutor Network

The next steps for Tutor Network are being able to implement a private whiteboard where students and tutors can work together while meeting. Another feature that we hope to add is an internal chat in Tutor Network where tutors and students can communicate, allowing the tutor to send resources to the student. This is currently being done via email, and it would be nice to have this done all within one single program.