DODOVERSE

Inspiration

In 1681, the flightless avian species known for its humorous name, the dodo bird, ceased to exist. Hunted to extinction less than eighty years after humans discovered the species, the dodo bird provides a tragic yet thorough example of mankind’s treatment towards nature. Now, nearly three hundred-fifty years later, as the Earth faces unprecedented climate catastrophes, the dodo bird has returned as a leader in climate change prevention.

The Dodoverse presents Didi the Dodo Bird; a sustainability teacher, friend, and digital pet. Based on the idea that education is a major catalyst for change, the Dodoverse improves the quality and quantity of sustainability education from the very beginning of mankind’s learning journeys: children. “Early childhood care and education programmes play a strategic role in combating climate change and protecting the environment,” according to UNICEF. By targeting children in early education stages, the Dodoverse actively invests in the long-term success of global sustainability initiatives.

The Dodoverse aims to provide an engaging, interactive, and growth-stimulating learning experience by providing Didi the Dodo Bird companion. Didi integrates sustainability education into children’s daily activities by introducing content through channels that align with children’s existing interests and hobbies. By gamifying the learning experience in a format that operates alongside students’ existing activities, Didi bridges the divides between education, fun, and social impact for young learners across the Dodoverse.

What it does

The Dodoverse application serves as an innovative online AI-assistant that transforms the way children interact with the internet, making it more accessible and engaging for a younger audience. By gamifying the understanding of crucial environmental best practices, the Dodoverse provides an enriching and immersive learning experience.

Didi the Dodo Bird's mission is to educate upcoming generations on the importance of caring for our planet. By embedding environmental education into the foundational stages of learning, the Dodoverse ensures that children develop a strong sense of environmental stewardship from an early age. This proactive approach not only enhances their knowledge but also instills lifelong values that contribute to a sustainable future.

The Dodoverse runs alongside users’ internet browser as a chrome extension as they browse as usual. Each time an environmental topic appears in their browsing results, Didi the DoDo bird pops onto their screen as a small icon and provides further education on the environmental topic in their browsing result. These environmental topics can be anything ranging from invasive species to recyclable materials! After providing further education on the topic, Didi provides an option for the user to play a game customized to the environmental topic they browse. If users choose to play, they are transported into the Dodoverse; loaded with sustainability lessons and environmental-related visuals customized to each experience, each game enables users to learn more as they play. Upon winning a game, users earn a trophy based on the environmental topic related to the game which can be added to their collection.

The Dodoverse truly enables users to increase their sustainability education without disrupting their existing daily activities. The Dodoverse merges seamlessly with users’ regular internet browsing and provides fun, interactive gameplay that promotes ongoing sustainability education.

How we built it

First, we established separation of domain by isolating the browser assistant component with the interactive educational game. The browser assistant is written using WebExtension V3, using an open-source web-scraping base written in Typescript and React. The browser extension imports the web DOM whenever a user visits a page and uses an open-source article extraction library to extract the webpage’s written content. Then, the content is sent to GPT 4o-mini for feature extraction and summarization.

Once GPT replies in JSON, Didi is ready to swoop in! If the current webpage contains information about an endangered species, Didi will tell you a fun fact, pick up trash for you, and invite you to play a game. The game configuration is encoded using HTTP query strings and sent to the next half of the codebase.

Next, a Flask backend is used to serve a static frontend written in HTML, JS, and CSS. Here, flask talks to OpenAI generative models such as DALL-E 3 and GPT-4o-mini to generate the assets and gameplay used to build a unique game every time! The gameplay is inspired by the animal the user was researching and its fun fact! The opponents’ decision-making is governed by a simple probabilistic model, weighted by the character’s chosen aggressivity parameter.

Challenges we ran into

Upon the announcement of this hackathon’s environmental theme, we ran into an ideation block almost immediately. We found it challenging to ideate a realistic, plausible product in a 36-hour time frame to address the immensely intimidating global issue of climate change. As a result, our team huddled over an ideation board and scribbled out product ideas for many hours before we began hacking. However, now as we emerge from the other end of the 36-hour period, we are pleased that we spent a significant portion of our time ideating. Our ideation period enabled us to not only brainstorm an innovative and impactful software product, but it also enabled us to plan our hacking, distribute tasks, and optimize energy throughout this entire experience!

Accomplishments that we're proud of

This was the first hackathon for one of our team members, Theo! Throughout this entire competition, his excitement and drive to innovate has never faltered—this experience has definitely inspired him to continue hacking on!

Our team consists entirely of engineering and commerce students. As a result, this experience has enabled each and every one of us to expand our technical knowledge by teaching and learning from each other. One of our team members, Kevin, taught the rest of us how to code in Flask. Another one of our team members, Theo, taught us how to integrate visual designs with front-end. Adam taught us how to film and edit demo videos using various softwares. And Claire taught us how to design UI/UX in Figma and PowerPoint. Leaving this competition, we are all very proud of the new skills we have learned and appreciative of each other for the knowledge shared.

What we learned

o A tone about generative AI o How to use advanced features of various technologies and software o How to stay positive and motivated throughout a multi-day working period

What's next for DODOVERSE

Our team sees endless opportunities and growth possibilities for the Dodoverse. Moving forward, we plan to expand the Dodoverse to the following initiatives:

o Partner with schools and educational organizations to integrate Dodoverse into curriculums. o Collaborate with environmental nonprofits to expand content and reach. This could involve joint campaigns, events, and projects that promote sustainability education. o Secure sponsorships from companies and governments with a strong commitment to sustainability. o Expand the platform to have multilingual support and build more interactive games, stories, quizzes, and learning tools. o Develop a mobile app for iOS and Android to make Dodoverse accessible on smartphones and tablets, increasing accessibility and user engagement. o Create a community platform where users can share their experiences, discuss sustainability topics, and collaborate on projects. o Develop a more comprehensive reward system with badges, levels, and leaderboards to motivate continued engagement. o Partner with eco-friendly brands to offer real-world rewards, such as discounts on sustainable products or donations to environmental causes in the user’s name. o Create monetization strategies such as subscription models, merchandising, and accessing grants and funding from educational and environmental organizations o Implement analytics to track user engagement and learning progress/outcomes.