AI Development & Frameworks (Beginner Friendly)

• Google AI Studio: The fastest way to get a Gemini API key and start prototyping for free. You can test your prompts in a sandbox and export the code directly into your project.   https://aistudio.google.com/

• Vertex AI Agent Builder (A2A SDK): An accessible path for building and connecting agents. The Agent-to-Agent (A2A) protocol allows different bots to "talk" to each other, which is perfect for complex Social Impact or Efficiency projects. https://cloud.google.com/products/agent-builder

• MediaPipe: A beginner-friendly SDK for on-device AI tasks like face detection or object recognition in the browser great for interactive web apps. https://mediapipe.org/

• Replit Agent / Cursor: AI-powered development environments that can help you generate full-stack boilerplate code from a single natural language prompt. https://replit.com/products/agent

FAU Data Sources (Campus AI Assistant)

Use these official resources to ensure your chatbot provides accurate information:

• FAU Academic Calendar: For "When is the last day to drop?" or graduation dates.

• FAU Dining Services: For "What dining halls are open right now?".

• FAU Campus Directory: For "Where is the tutoring center?" or department locations.

Advanced Tools

• Hugging Face: Access a massive library of open-source models and datasets, ideal for the AI for Good track.  https://huggingface.co/

• LangChain / LangGraph: Use these if your team wants to build "autonomous" agents that can follow complex multi-step instructions. https://www.langchain.com/langgraph

Project Management

• GitHub: All teams must host their code here for submission.

• Hoot Hacks Discord: Join the server for technical support and to find teammates during the 10:00 AM Team Formation.