The Emory Wheel
Emory Life
Wednesday, March 1, 2023 | Emory Life Editors: Chaya Tong (ctong9@emory.edu), Xavier Stevens (xsteven@emory.edu) and Jordyn Libow (jeibow@emory.edu)
Sunday night on the Emory SafeRide shuttle By Xavier Stevens Emory Life Editor From a roll, the Emory University SafeRide shuttle screeched to a stop on the street between Emory Hospital buildings on Sunday night. Three people —a whispering couple and an asleep student — sat in the shuttle’s white light en route to the Clairmont campus. The driver, Shantay Mitchell, honked and pulled her lever to swing the doors open toward a student walking alone in the dark. “You didn’t want to call a ride?” she yelled out the doors. “I was just going to walk,” the student said. The response was one that Mitchell hears all too often, but she recognized the student by face as a SafeRide regular. “No, come on!” Mitchell said. The student smiled and stepped onto the shuttle. Mitchell passed through the gates of Starvine Way and reached Clairmont in five minutes, where she dropped off the four students. It was a quiet night for Mitchell, who volunteered her Saturday and Sunday nights to drive SafeRide—Emory’s free and on-demand shuttle service. It operates on the Atlanta campus from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m., after the daily shuttles stop. Students request a ride through a phone call or the app Transloc to go anywhere on campus, as well as
Clairmont and Emory Point. Two to three shuttles operate as SafeRide every night, 365 days a year. Mitchell started as an Emory shuttle driver two years ago and drives the Emory Shuttle Executive Park Route during the day. But, she said she enjoys the night shift of the SafeRide more, not only for the extra pay but also its capacity for life. On Saturday, students from parties try to convince Mitchell that it’s water in their red solo cup. They talk about seeing their ex at the party or their dog at home. Between conversations, Mitchell helps confused students figure out the process of requesting a ride. On Sunday, students talk less overall but more about what matters most. Mitchell knew that students don’t like living in the Clairmont Tower, which professors graded too hard and midterms schedules. She will stop by students wandering from the library or on Starvine Way to ask if they need a ride. It’s in the name of getting students home safe. Here comes a student who wants to take the trip from Clairmont to the freshman dorms with his two friends. They have never ridden SafeRide, and with no pending requests, Mitchell takes the time to walk them through it. “SafeRide is your Uber,” she told them. “You just request it, and I will be here to get you. But, I want you to go
through the process, so you know how to do it next time.” The student requested the wrong location on the app but got it right when he called the transportation office, who set up his ride to Raoul Hall. “Now, you can sit down, baby,” Mitchell said. Over the next three hours, more than two dozen students ride the SafeRide covering the expanse of Emory’s campus. An exodus from the library sends Mitchell to Emory Point three times and Clairmont five times. Around midnight, the shuttle waited several minutes for “Austin” at CVS, who ended up being a no show. Mitchell recently discovered the Emory Bayit House past the baseball stadium and picked up a regular rider at 12:30 a.m. The job comes with its daily challenges, ranging from personal to technical. One night, a student refused to take his feet off the seats after coming in from the rain. A student last Saturday wanted to be dropped off before Mitchell picked up another student on the way. On Sunday, Mitchell had to hop a curb at Woodruff Residential Center to avoid cars parked in the circle out front. On the way back to Clairmont on Starvine Way, Mitchell beeped her horn at another shuttle who beeped back. She radioed the other driver
X avier Stevens/Emory Life Editor
SafeRide operates from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. and goes anywhere on campus and beyond to Clairmont and Emory Point. to tell them their destination sign said “Route M;” the other driver radioed back to tell Mitchell her destination sign was blank. Both drivers had set their destination signs to say “SAFERIDE.” Mitchell plans to drive SafeRide as long as she stays at Emory. With the extra pay and quieter shift, it’s a highly-requested job with even more senior colleagues taking Monday through Friday. It works well with her schedule, and she said she enjoys working with students. One of the hardest parts of her job is that most students don’t
know what SafeRide is or how to use it, Mitchell said. At 1 a.m., an Emory employee walks towards the SafeRide shuttle but then turns away to start on Starvine Way. Mitchell honks and waves her back towards the shuttle. “Ma’am, do you want a ride?” Mitchell said. “This is the SafeRide.” “I can just walk, it’s okay,” the employee said. “Ma’am, come on.”
— Contact Xavier Stevens at xsteven@emory.edu
Student entrepreneurs use AI to improve student studying experience By Jordyn Libow Emory Life Editor Fast-paced math and computer science major Karam Khanna (25C) is bothered by inefficiency. During the final exam period last fall, he found himself frustrated by the laborious, tedious act of creating review materials, which stole valuable time away from actually studying the material. For busy college students around the world, time is absolutely precious. Being a computer science major, Khanna has a strong interest and advanced knowledge of artificial intelligence (AI), which got him thinking about how he could use this new technology to replace this current “terrible, terrible system,” and solve the issue of inefficiency so prevalent in studying. By winter break, his solution was born. Khanna built what is now to be known as Eightball, a website that uses the power of AI to make studying more efficient and easier. Upon returning to Emory after winter break, Khanna recruited his two entrepreneurial friends Shaan Basin (25B) and Ben Craver (25C) to join the team and help bring this startup to life. Basin runs growth and community outreach and Craver runs digital branding. “Seeing as we’re all students, you know, we’re at the intersection of understanding the current technology coming out, and the actual student experience, as in the pain points and the difficulty parts,” Khanna said. “And so, our goal is to merge those two together, and build the first kind of app that leverages AI to build a whole suite of services for students.” The team seeks to “save students’ time, enhance the learning process and empower educators” with their mission statement. Eightball’s website was officially released about two weeks ago. It wel-
comes and motivates student users with a border of A+’s written surrounding the Gen-Z-popularized phrase, “Academic Weapon.” Currently, the website’s only published tool is an instant flashcard service, that’s webpage is branded by the slogan “Never write flashcards again. Work hard. Work smart.” The flashcard service allows users to upload materials including lecture slides and typed or handwritten notes, then it will automatically spit out flashcards based on the uploaded material. The origin of Eightball coincided with the rising popularity of ChatGPT, which garnered a lot of intrigue and excitement, as well as fear, especially within academic contexts. “ChatGPT was kind of that last push we needed to jump in the pool, because it validated that students want to use AI for their workflow,” Khanna said. “But, ChatGPT is an all-purpose tool for everyone and everything. Our goal is to refine that and make it really targeted to students who we understand the experience of their pain points to make the student experience better.”
This flashcard feature is only step one in the grand plan of Eightball. The team has two more features in the works, expected to be released on the website by mid March. The first creates practice tests and corresponding answer keys, and the second is a homework helper, which they consider their next major feature. Basin said that this homework-helper service is distinct from other homework solver platforms. “We feel that we have a moral responsibility,” Basin said. “Our goal is not to solve your homework, it’s to be the companion, to be that tool next to you. It is not that tool, like Chegg, that simply just spits out the answer. It is a tool that is going to help you genuinely learn your material.” Khanna eagerly whipped his computer out of his bag to demonstrate the flashcard feature in action, easily creating a batch of 40 intelligent flashcards derived from his uploaded class notes. The website is equipped with simple instructions for how to upload files and export the flashcards once they’ve been generated. The whole pro-
Courtesy of Ben Craver
Eightball’s logo was designed by Ben Craver (25C).
cess took about two minutes. “It’ll come up with really powerful and intelligent flashcards,” Basin said. “The algorithm that we’re using is piercing through your data, it’s piercing through your notes, and it’s reading that, taking that in, and coming up with very relevant flashcards.” Eightball uses Open AI on the backend of the operation, which allows Eightball access to relevant information from the internet as well as the uploaded file. Khanna describes the process with a clear adoration. He speaks rapidly, intent on getting every detail across to fully showcase this project’s immense capabilities. “The same way that ChatGPT just knows things, it’s the same way Eightball works,” Khanna said. “It has a lot of background information to enrich things.” One of the biggest challenges of working on Eightball at Emory has been the University’s lack of entrepreneurship and startups. Through growing Eightball, the team hopes to consequently grow the startup scene at Emory. One challenge they’ve had to overcome is working on a “tight” budget to develop the company. “As students, we’ve got like $10,000 to make this work,” Khanna said. “It’s really fun and exciting to see how we can hack together and save like every last cent because we’re really bootstrapping this from the ground up.” Despite this, Eightball has gained lots of attraction. Through spearheading virtual branding for Eightball, Craver has been able to track engagement. He uses platforms, including Instagram, TikTok, Discord and Reddit to get the word out about Eightball. Since this social media marketing effort, the website garnered roughly 60 daily users. The website has also had an interna-
tional impact. Craver has tracked use in the UK, China, Canada, Lebanon, the Philippines and more. Khanna said that the team’s biggest asset lies in having a first-hand understanding of the student study experience and genuinely wanting to help ease the pains that come with that. They also have unique strengths in their speed. Khanna’s advanced understanding of the technology allows him to create new features in rapid time—he built a mobile version of the website in one day. Basin is promptly connecting with students, organizations, professors and teaching assistants on campus to increase exposure. Craver has quickly created a “virtual backbone” for the platform through his digital branding strategies that established a community of people behind the product. On a larger scale, the team hopes to one day replace Quizlet. They believe Quizlet is just a “middle man,” since the student is still the one putting in the effort of creating the flashcards. Khanna said that he has built their exact products in a demo and could easily put it out for free. “We’re a way more powerful tool,” Basin said. “And, growing on a college campus, the world is our oyster.” Khanna, Basin and Craver said that they are committed to this project for the long run. “Our end goal is we’re not gonna be happy until students who use Eightball can’t go back to not using it,” Khanna said. The “8” on a Magic 8 Ball can be interpreted as a symbol for infinity, and when you shake a Magic 8 Ball, it responds instantaneously. Eightball grants instantaneous aid and infinite knowledge—nothing short of “magic” for busy students
— Contact Jordyn Libow at jordyn.libow@emory.edu