Boring-Slide-Eradicator-Inator, eradicating one bad slide at a time.

Boring-Slide-Eradicator-inator

A Gemini-powered tool that transforms confusing lecture slides into clear and engaging material, making learning easier for students.

Before:

Before

After:

After

Inspiration

We started this project to tackle a common educational challenge—poorly designed lecture slides that hinder student learning. Our tool aims to transform these slides into clear and engaging content, speeding up the understanding process for students and saving time for educators who need to optimise their presentations. By improving how educational content is presented, we hope to make learning more efficient and effective for both students and professors.

What it does

The main goal of the Boring-Slide-Eradicator-inator is to help students focus more on understanding the topic, rather than understanding the slides.

The way this works is by uploading lecture slides through our app and with Google Gemini, the app will generate slides that look better and with clearer explanations.

There are also additional features such as specifiying citations to refer to, excluding slides that do not require explaination and choosing of PPT theme.

How we built it

The Boring-Slide-Eradicator-inator utilises google.generativeai for processing, streamlit for user interaction and pptx-python to create slides. Here’s how the transformation process works:

Flowchart of App

Leveraging 1.5 Pro's "Output in JSON" and expanded context window, output is structured for seamless slide generation and only one prompt is needed to process the entire PDF, significantly increasing speed.

Challenges we ran into

Prompt Refinement

Initially, crafting prompts that consistently improved upon the original slides proved challenging. The team encountered issues with unclear prompts that even resulted in outputs inferior to the original slides. Through extensive testing and editing, the team was able to develop a concise and effective prompt.

Delivering a User-Friendly Output

Even with consistent generation, the team faced difficulties in presenting the improved content in a format readily usable by students. After much deliberation, the team opted for a familiar and simple solution: generating new, improved PowerPoint slides with clear and concise content.

Formatting of new PowerPoint Slides

As the response was formatted in a markdown format, the team also had to come up with new methods in order to help convert the markdown formatted text into one that is more visually & aesthetically pleasant, so that the students can benefit more from it.

Error & exception handling

Due to the unpredictable nature of GenAI, even with the best prompts, the team realised that there were multiple other factors that could affect the application (e.g: response timeout), thus after multiple trial & error, the team managed to resolve these error and exception that could potentially hinder the deployment of the application.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Along the way we have came across many significant achievements. Here are the main ones we're proud of:

We were able to succesfully utilise the features Gemini 1.5 Pro has to offer such as its 1M token context window, output in JSON, AI Studio playground and "Get Code" feature.
Through meticulous crafting and refinement, we developed a prompt that consistently generates high-quality output, ensuring the effectiveness and reliability of our application.
We implemented a flexible system that allows users to format PPT slides according to their preferences, including the ability to select from a range of themes. This ensures a personalized and engaging experience.
Developed a fully automated process for generating slides, saving users valuable time and effort while maintaining quality and accuracy.
We prioritised writing clean and low-code solutions, ensuring the application is easy to maintain and modify as future needs evolve. This focus on technical excellence sets the stage for long-term sustainability and growth.
Lastly, we fostered a collaborative and supportive environment, working together seamlessly without conflicts to achieve our shared goals.

These accomplishments demonstrate our commitment to innovation, user experience, and technical excellence. They lay a strong foundation for the future growth and success of our application.

What we learned

This project presented valuable learning experiences beyond the final tool itself. We discovered the challenges of translating initial ideas into functional prototypes. It took multiple iterations and refinements of prompts to achieve consistent and clear outputs from the generative model. Furthermore, we learned the importance of user-friendliness. Instead of overly complex interfaces, a simple and familiar output format (improved PowerPoint slides) proved most effective for student users.

Future Works

Here are the several enhancements that are in the pipeline:

Multi-modal Output

Enhance slide presentations by integrating the ability to process and generate images, diagrams, and videos. This will provide richer visuals and offer suggested multimedia additions to enrich the learning experience.

Quiz Generation

Automatically generate quizzes based on slide content to reinforce learning and extend user engagement beyond just reading.

LMS Integration

Improve educational workflows by integrating our application with Learning Management Systems (LMS), allowing for seamless incorporation of enhanced slides.

Data Privacy

Prioritizing the security of student information, we will implement robust data privacy measures, including encryption, to ensure responsible use and protection of data.