BillyChat

Inspiration

The need to provide a third source of information in an ongoing conversation and mitigate loneliness of no responses.

What it does

Important decision maker and companion during lonely times. It acts as a person in a group chat, and it responds when directly mentioned or by random.

How we built it

We used a node js and socket.io to create a group chat server and a client front end. Then we used Cleverbot as Billy and added logic to when he should and should not respond. Next we included an separate bot for giving information on news from the New York Times.

Challenges we ran into

1. Connecting to cleverbot api (solved)
2. Connecting an iphone to the socket server (not solved)
3. The race condition with api calls (solved)
4. Integrating a MongoDB with Node server (not solved)
5. Connecting client to server (solved)

Accomplishments that we're proud of

1. Being able to create a server and client using sockets
2. Actually deploying the application online

What we learned

• The pit falls of Xcode • New York Times • NLP • Cleverbot • node.js • socket.io

What's next for BillyChat

More bots and smarter reactions. We plan on moving away from Cleverbot and have billy be able to create responses on its own. Making a way for Billy to detect arguments or disagreements and provide relative information.

Built With

• cleverbot
• new-york-times
• node.js
• socket.io