Scholar-Buddy

Inspiration

Many people, including students, get information, news, and research from platforms like TikTok — but such platforms are riddled with misinformation, where creators often make statements with no cited sources or distort research findings to fit a narrative.

Scholar Buddy makes research papers accessible for everyday people, enabling them to digest information and form their own opinions based on facts and numbers. Misinformation can lead to irreversible damage, and everyone should be empowered to make informed decisions backed by real evidence, not just viral soundbites.

It also helps students understand dense and jargon-heavy academic papers. Scholar Buddy breaks them down into digestible explanations, paired with a AI assisted questioning, removing the barrier to knowledge for curious minds.

What it does

Our web app gives users two main options:

Search for a topic (e.g. “stem cells”) and select a desired level of detail. The app then displays a selection of articles, allowing the user to pick one and view a generated summary tailored to the chosen level of detail.
Ask a general research question (e.g. “How does X affect Y?”). The app returns a summary answering the question — again, at the selected level of detail — and links to supporting research articles.

How we built it

We built a modern frontend using JavaScript, React, and CSS to create a clean and intuitive interface. On the backend, we used the arXiv API to access a large repository of reliable research papers. We extracted the full text by scraping the PDFs provided through the API.

This content is then processed using the OpenAI API, enabling users to request custom summaries and explore reliable academic material related to their queries.

Challenges we ran into

We encountered multiple issues, particularly around sourcing reliable APIs and figuring out how to use them effectively. For example, during early builds, we found fake articles appearing in our results — such as a paper allegedly co-authored by LeBron James, Yao Ming, and David Beckham.

We also discovered the challenges of collaborating in a small team using GitHub, which led to major setbacks due to merge conflicts and version control hiccups.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We’re proud of our seamless integration of the OpenAI API, which we achieved through thoughtful prompt engineering. Our sleek, intuitive UI design is another highlight. We're especially excited about the "research question" feature, which allows for flexible input and increases the app’s accessibility and usefulness for a wider range of users.

What we learned

Our biggest takeaway is that while APIs are incredibly powerful, they must be used with care. It's essential to check the validity of the API and thoroughly read its documentation before integration.

What’s next for Scholar Buddy

We’d like to add features to make the app even more accessible and user-friendly. These include:

A personalised feed with common or trending searches based on user interests
Implementation of a database and user accounts to enable session persistence and customisation
Markdown support in our outputs to improve formatting and readability