December 20, 2024
At Mizzou, we believe in the power of hands-on learning. We call it the Missouri Method, and it is an important part of our curriculum and what makes Mizzou Made engineers valuable in the workforce. For Mizzou Engineers, that process culminates with a senior capstone class where students develop solutions to real-world problems.
Information technology students create work together to develop a website, application or program puts their coursework into action. The group of Colin Buchheit, Jake Culbertson, Max Cytron, Jakob Donald and Zohn Wheeler set out to create a Discord bot that can offer immediate educational assistance to students.
Learn more about the project, how the group worked to solve it and what they learned from the experience.
24/7 academic assistance
Jakob Donald: We wanted to solve the need for a teacher/professor or any person to be able to assist students with problems. There are many times where students need help and times where they can’t get ahold of assistance. We created a Discord bot that students could speak with if they needed immediate help. This is designed specifically for educational purposes.
This bot will be deployed across multiple Discord servers, creating a vibrant platform where students can engage in dynamic conversations. It will function as an expert tool, allowing students to ask questions and receive informative answers in real-time. Our goal was to simulate the experience of conversing with a knowledgeable individual and make learning more interactive and accessible. It will adapt to individual user preferences, ensuring that each interaction is meaningful and relevant, while also remembering each conversation that it has had.
Max Cytron: I think everyone in this group had a strong drive to work with AI from the start. Our group got together not for our exact project purpose, but rather to work with AI plain and simple. Our professor and capstone advisor Gillian Maurer recommended the specific project of creating the AI TA to us. She had a previous version that worked for one of her courses. We wanted to improve upon this system, and felt it was a great opportunity.
From research to ethical use
Colin Buchheit: The process of our capstone project was both structured and iterative, beginning with research and planning. Our team initially drafted a detailed project proposal that outlined our objectives and the design elements of our project. This stage involved in-depth research into the development path, including the features and functionalities we aimed to implement. We finalized our development stages during this phase and set clear goals for the capabilities of the AI assistant, along with stretch goals to push our boundaries.
Next came the building phase, where we utilized Atlassian’s Jira board for project management. This tool was integral in assigning tasks, tracking bug reports, and meeting milestones. It allowed us to follow Agile development methodologies, a practice we had learned through our coursework. This approach kept us organized and efficient as we moved through the development process.
As we approached the final stages, we developed an ethics and security paper. This paper tackled the ethical implications and security challenges surrounding the use of an AI assistant, including data storage and user privacy. It was a critical step in ensuring our project was not only functional but also responsible and secure.
Jake Culbertson: We haven’t publicly rolled out this project to any active servers outside of our testing server. However, our hopes are to utilize this bot as a learning assistant in several IT course Discord servers and continue to make improvements based on feedback from students. Our goal is to give students a useful resource to ask questions about the course, that will be available 24/7 to assist students’ academic success.
Expanding skillsets
Culbertson: Within our group, we all had different skillsets and strengths going into the project, so each of us individually learned different things and expanded different skills during this project. Something that was new to most of us was working with Discord and specifically learning how to implement an AI bot using ChatGPT’s API. Although some of us already had experience with the GPT API, that was also an area that is an overall new territory in general and has been very interesting to explore. Some other things we were able to learn about during this process were working collaboratively using GitHub, using Docker to containerize and working with MongoDB.
Zohn Wheeler: The Mizzou Engineering curriculum builds upon itself. This allowed us to build a proper framework of the world of technology then expand upon those skills. The professors within the program excel in different ways. I have had great moments of technical learning that will prepare me to work in the field. However, I have had just as many memorable moments being creative and artistic with technology.
We really enjoyed working on this project and would like to give special thanks to our capstone advisors Gillian Maurer and Gabe Ivey for their support.
Learn more about information technology at Mizzou!
Read about other capstone projects here.