Alexa Virtual Assistant

Art of Making / Maker Space Virtual Assistant

Student-Led Project

We're making a digital assistant program that can find things in a database and tell a user its location within a makerspace.

Initial Team Members: Frank Czura, Ben Desiderato, Amelia Glenn, Warren Lester, Shane Riley

Current methods for cataloging items in makerspaces are inefficient to put together and manage People currently use Amazon’s Alexa to automate solutions in their daily lives. Items in the Art of Making makerspace are too difficult to find. How might we improve the ease of use of makerspace catalogues? ISSUE: wasted time A few seconds on a small scale, hours on a large scale STAKEHOLDERS: Students Professors Swanson School of Engineering If we don’t do anything, time continues to be wasted ASSOCIATED COSTS: Amazon Alexa platform Wiring Employee compensation Routine maintenance Action should be taken on this issue in order to maximize the time spent in the creative process. Using Amazon’s Alexa, we can automate a database for the makerspace. In order to do this, we plan on creating a prototype using AWS and Python Testing Usability of this method on actual users of the makerspace

• Date: Fall 2019

MyPitt.edu Redesign

Reimagining the potential of MyPitt.edu

Student-Led Project

The my.pitt rework team has designed a test tool using Adobe XD in order to simulate a potential redesign for the website. Our purpose is to gain feedback about user interface (UI) and user experience (UX). The design is a functional network of UI and graphical content, however it is not implemented in Hypertext Markup Language (html) with Pitt systems is a deeply involved process and would require significant investment of time and cooperation with University of Pittsburgh employees and leadership. At the current stage of testing, it is desirable to gain feedback on the most basic aspects of UX: is it easily navigable? Does the layout make sense? What improvements need to be made? Is it visually appealing? Once those aspects have gained sufficient feedback and the design has incorporated the results, further work for a more comprehensive testing system would be advisable. We are looking for test users to interact with our deliverable to offer us insights towards improving the UI design.

• Date: Spring 2020
• App Demo
• https://github.com/Pitt-Technical-Communications/MyPitt.edu-Redesign

Oakland Can’t Wait

Restaurant wait time estimator

Student-Led Project

The Oakland Can’t Wait restaurant time reference web app builds a database of references based on consumer feedback. It was built to combat the unnecessary need of waiting in long lines at some of the more popular restaurants in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh PA. Along with combating waiting, Oakland Can’t Wait has the potential to help local businesses by helping the stress of workers serving extremely long lines. The main purpose of the project is to display accurate wait times based on user input. Not only were we able to successfully implement this feature, we also gained experience in a highly useful scripting language. Other than learning php, our entire group, made up of Computer Science majors, already knew HTML and JavaScript. Since our group was already familiar with those two things, it allowed us to develop our project/database much quicker instead of spending time learning.

• Date: Spring 2020
• App Demo
• github.com/Pitt-Technical-Communications/Oakland-Cant-Wait

School Guru

Homework Planner

Student-Led Project

We created the SchoolGuru homework tracker for students who have trouble with time management. The web-based application arranges user-input assignments onto a weekly calendar, displaying the assignment on multiple days before the due date to serve as reminders to complete the assignment. Many homework trackers only display assignments on the date they are due, but SchoolGuru calculates the amount of time that needs to be spent on the assignment each day up until the day it is due. The weekly calendar view sits at the top of the web page, with a navigation bar along the top border with buttons that allow the user to jump straight to the bottom of the web page to input their assignments. The navigation bar also includes a link to the About and Frequently Asked Questions page, which provides more detailed instructions and explanations of the product. By breaking down assignments and displaying them as smaller assignments, this web page will hopefully help students by providing a better visual representation of all of their upcoming work.

• Date: Spring 2020
• github.com/Pitt-Technical-Communications/SchoolGuru
• School Guru App Demo

Virtual Advisor

Connecting Students with Possibilities

Student-Led Project

Students can become confused with major requirements or with what classes would best fit their goals - advising appointments are not efficient for quick answers or to answer concerns. The virtual Advisor allows PPW students access to advising when necessary - Clear description of PPW classes - Straight forward layout of graduation requirements. Can be displayed on touch screens around PPW department (accessible and convenient) - Possible for use in other departments as well. We broke into teams of two in order to start tackling the first major 3 parts of the project: Home/Sample Schedule section, Requirement section, and Recommended Courses section. Our goal is to get content together and start playing around with the styling. The design came from a Bootstrap template that we simplified for this project. We wanted it to be basic to not distract from the content.

• Fall 2019, Spring 2020
• https://github.com/Pitt-Technical-Communications/virtual-advisor
• Demo Virtual Advisor

• Fall 2020 Redesign
• https://github.com/Pitt-Technical-Communications/virtual-advisor
• Demo 2.0

Pedagogy Kiosk

Providing Developing Teachers with Experience

Student-Led Project

Beginning teachers often need help navigating situations that could potentially emerge in the classroom. The Pedagogy Kiosk is a student-built system designed to help graduate student educators prepare for these situations. It provides 360 degree videos that allow emersion into the classroom environment.

The goal of this project is to think about how virtual reality can be used to help new teachers become effective teachers in the classroom. Each subsequent addition to this project should build on the knowledge gained from earlier versions. This could include the addition of new technologies, as well as new strategies to facilitate a given situation.

• Fall 2019
• Site Demo
• https://github.com/Pitt-Technical-Communications/PedagogyKiosk

Ski Patroller App

Accident Reporting Application

This application intends to alert ski patrollers at Seven Springs of accidents more quickly and efficiently than the current system. Currently, someone must alert a lift attendant at the top of bottom of the slope to report an accident to ski patrol, which can take time especially in the case of a long lift. A user making a report via the app will get useful information to ski patrol more quickly than waiting to get off of the lift or to the bottom of the slope. This can ultimately save lives when serious accidents occur.

• Date: Date: December 2021
• https://github.com/Pitt-Technical-Communications/Ski-Patrol-App

Idea Hub

Where Great Ideas Begin

The web application offers a space for students at the University of Pittsburgh to share their project ideas. This school-wide network, will offer students, faculty, and staff, the opportunity to find like-minded team members devoted to transforming ideas into deliverables.

• Date: Date: December 2021
• Demo

Rate my Tutor

Find a tutor based on crowd-sourced rankings

Students have difficulty finding good tutoring at the University of Pittsburgh because tutoring services are fragmented by schools/majors/departments. Additionally, students cannot be sure of the quality of their perspective tutor. We propose a website, similar to RateMyProfessor.com, allowing students to search for tutors in their respective field of study, and find information about the tutor's effectiveness. Each tutor page will rank the tutor’s knowledge, helpfulness, and overall quality based on student feedback.

• Date: Date: December 2021
• github.com/Pitt-Technical-Communications/Rate-My-Tutor
• Demo

University Mentorship

Matching Algorithm

The idea to propose a University-wide mentorship program was created as a way to help incoming freshmen during the transition into the sometimes daunting college environment. In many cases, it can take time for students to become acquainted with their surroundings and academics. This proposed solution will seek to pair freshmen with volunteer upperclassmen, who were in their shoes a few years prior, to guide them through any hardships they may experience.

• Date: December 2021
• https://github.com/Pitt-Technical-Communications/UWMP
• Demo

Project Name

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur.

Use this area to describe your project. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit. Est blanditiis dolorem culpa incidunt minus dignissimos deserunt repellat aperiam quasi sunt officia expedita beatae cupiditate, maiores repudiandae, nostrum, reiciendis facere nemo!

• Date: January 2017
• github.com/sjquigley/alexa-makerspace-assistant

Project Name

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur.

Use this area to describe your project. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit. Est blanditiis dolorem culpa incidunt minus dignissimos deserunt repellat aperiam quasi sunt officia expedita beatae cupiditate, maiores repudiandae, nostrum, reiciendis facere nemo!

• Date: January 2017
• github.com/sjquigley/alexa-makerspace-assistant

Project Name

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur.

Use this area to describe your project. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit. Est blanditiis dolorem culpa incidunt minus dignissimos deserunt repellat aperiam quasi sunt officia expedita beatae cupiditate, maiores repudiandae, nostrum, reiciendis facere nemo!

• Date: January 2017
• github.com/sjquigley/alexa-makerspace-assistant

Project Name

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur.

Use this area to describe your project. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit. Est blanditiis dolorem culpa incidunt minus dignissimos deserunt repellat aperiam quasi sunt officia expedita beatae cupiditate, maiores repudiandae, nostrum, reiciendis facere nemo!

• Date: January 2017
• github.com/sjquigley/alexa-makerspace-assistant

Project Name

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur.

Use this area to describe your project. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit. Est blanditiis dolorem culpa incidunt minus dignissimos deserunt repellat aperiam quasi sunt officia expedita beatae cupiditate, maiores repudiandae, nostrum, reiciendis facere nemo!

• Date: January 2017
• github.com/sjquigley/alexa-makerspace-assistant