QuizGuru - Robot that reads random questions to you

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jrachele
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QuizGuru - Robot that reads random questions to you

Post by jrachele »

Hey guys, I know this probably isn't a very original idea and I'm sure it has been previously implemented to some extent, but I have created a program that reads aloud tossups to you.

The program uses MaryTTS and Quinterest to read aloud questions and query them respectively. The project is completely free and open source and it's hosted on git-hub.

As of version 1.3.1:
-Supports all difficulties
-Supports both Tossups and Bonuses
-Supports custom input
-Each question is stored in Question History for later reference, and may be extracted to a file (though nothing is stored yet on the local machine for use in-between program launches)
-There are 4 different voices available
-There are sections for most tournaments
-There is a pause/play button for toggling bot speech on and off, as well as a stop button.
-Fully functional offline


Video of QuizGuru in action:
https://youtu.be/IFY4QOyrJLg


The project can be found here: https://github.com/jrachele/Quiz-Guru

Download the ZIP file (lib folder must be extracted into same place as JAR otherwise the program will not run): https://github.com/jrachele/Quiz-Guru/r ... /tag/1.3.1

If you have any questions feel free to message me at: [email protected]

*ALSO, although I make sure to credit Quinterest here and in the program, if there is an issue and you would like me to stop using your database, feel free to let me know and I'll take this program down.
Last edited by jrachele on Thu Feb 02, 2017 1:05 am, edited 4 times in total.
Julian Rachele - Freshman - University of South Carolina

Email: [email protected]
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dhumphreys17
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Re: QuizGuru - Robot that reads random questions to you

Post by dhumphreys17 »

I really like this program for three reasons:

1. It has four different voices, each of which has its own pros and cons, but it has that option instead of one Perfect Paul, for example.

2. It keeps a running answerline list on another tab.

3. For the first time in my time with the quizbowl community, I can actually practice independent of other people without worrying about the fact that with other programs (e.g. Protobowl), differences in visual and auditory learning styles have to be taken into account.

Short story shorter, I'm a fan of this program.

EDIT - Upon further examination of the program, I have two suggestions for a further update: (1) add the ability to buzz without immediately revealing an answer, and (2) allow for a custom distribution, if that's reasonable to implement.
Devin James John Humphreys
Sacred Heart Academy High School (MI), Class of 2017 - 2015 HSNCT, 2016 NSC, 2017 NSC
Michigan State University, B.A. Class of 2020
University of Notre Dame, J.D. Class of 2023 - standby 2023 ICT-DII; coach 2023-24
jrachele
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Re: QuizGuru - Robot that reads random questions to you

Post by jrachele »

Thanks Devin!

Yes, I feel like I should probably adjust the dynamic of the Get Tossup/Answer button a bit, maybe providing a small pause/play button next to it just for pausing the voice?

The custom distribution is likely a pretty simple thing to implement, all I would really have to do is run a random number generator with certain weighted values based on your distribution just to choose whichever topic... I suppose I'll get to adding that pretty soon. Stay tuned for now
Julian Rachele - Freshman - University of South Carolina

Email: [email protected]
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dhumphreys17
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Re: QuizGuru - Robot that reads random questions to you

Post by dhumphreys17 »

One other thing to look at that I only just noticed: the TTS tends to think apostrophes are grounds for separating a word. So it reads "nation's" like "nation s" instead of "nations". Maybe code the text-to-speech program so it ignores apostrophes?

Despite some of these issues, this program is nonetheless quite groundbreaking, as I don't think I've ever seen quiz bowl (at least on these forums) have a TTS program before.
Devin James John Humphreys
Sacred Heart Academy High School (MI), Class of 2017 - 2015 HSNCT, 2016 NSC, 2017 NSC
Michigan State University, B.A. Class of 2020
University of Notre Dame, J.D. Class of 2023 - standby 2023 ICT-DII; coach 2023-24
jrachele
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Joined: Sun Oct 09, 2016 10:42 am

Re: QuizGuru - Robot that reads random questions to you

Post by jrachele »

Hey, so I went ahead and fixed the apostrophe problem as well as the forward slash problem (of the same type)

I also added the play/pause button requested.

You can get the new Version 1.2.5 here:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/fl88f8v6x6ph6 ... 5.zip?dl=0
Julian Rachele - Freshman - University of South Carolina

Email: [email protected]
jrachele
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Re: QuizGuru - Robot that reads random questions to you

Post by jrachele »

I have just released an improved version (1.3)

See above for details
Julian Rachele - Freshman - University of South Carolina

Email: [email protected]
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Snom
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Re: QuizGuru - Robot that reads random questions to you

Post by Snom »

jrachele: I'm not sure the quinterest people would like you leaking the username and password to their MySQL database :lol:

You might want to clone the repository to an SQLite file or something (PM me if you want my dump)
Albert Zhang
Columbia '24
State College '16-'20
jrachele
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Re: QuizGuru - Robot that reads random questions to you

Post by jrachele »

While this isn't exactly a justification, I will say that I retrieved their plain-text information from their github.

As far as using a dumped SQL db file, that is actually what I plan on doing but I'm not sure exactly how to go about retrieving the information from a local data table. My actual question retrieval mechanism uses SQL, I suppose I'd just need to overhaul the system using Java FileIO since I can't run SQL queries on the offline file that I've extracted...

I suppose SQLite is the fix for this? I'm really not too familiar with database integration in java. I'll look into this SQLite integration right now and I'll update this once I succeed.
Julian Rachele - Freshman - University of South Carolina

Email: [email protected]
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Snom
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Re: QuizGuru - Robot that reads random questions to you

Post by Snom »

The problem is said username/password is the admin user and has edit access to the database...

Code: Select all

DROP TABLE [name of table] anyone?
Albert Zhang
Columbia '24
State College '16-'20
jrachele
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Re: QuizGuru - Robot that reads random questions to you

Post by jrachele »

As of Version 1.3.1, QuizGuru uses SQLite and it is therefore no longer necessary to be online to use it.

Thank you to Albert Zhang for your help!
Julian Rachele - Freshman - University of South Carolina

Email: [email protected]
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