Bushnell Virtual Mentor

Designed for the Bushnell Theatre in Hartford, CT, the virtual mentor is a project aimed for one goal: create a way for students to have meaningful interactions with AI that both contribute to learning, and allow for teachers to be confident in the material distributed. Using a combination of OpenAI, Elevenlabs, and prompt engineering, a prototype was programmed that would give an example of the software through the historical events of integration, focusing on the Little Rock Nine. By basing the narrative off of Melba Pattillo-Beals’ Warriors Don’t Cry, an interactive learning experience was devised and assembled by a team at the University of Connecticut.

I was the programmer behind the Unreal Engine Prototype, assembling 2d, 3d, and AI components to make a functional build to showcase to shareholders. This version of the project was composed of a text-adventure component, allowing students to understand the events that Melba went through, and a reflection component, allowing discussion with an AI that would build on the events students witnessed to have a meaningful conversation.