Facebook invited Walton County Boys & Girls Club to participate in their Engineer for the Week program. Twenty members from the Club participated to work on creating a chat bot for change messenger system.

“Engineer for the Week provides a pathway for learners to explore engineering and gain computer science skills,” Lynn E. Hill, WCBGC Director, shared. “We were so excited to be able to bring this opportunity to our youth this fall.”

Hill shared the youth decided their subject of choice would be Bullying prevention and Tobacco Use Awareness.

“Our Club members met for a total of 15 hours to construct two chat bots that will be able to address the issues they deemed important by the community,” Hill shared. “When a Facebook user engages the Bullying Prevention Bot, the user will receive helpful ways to prevent bullying from happening and how to respond to bullying. When a Facebook user engages the Tobacco Use Awareness Bot, the user will receive information on the dangers of tobacco use and how to say no to peer pressure.”

For Club member D’Aces King, this project was meaningful.

“It is really cool that we get to create an actual chat bot that can help someone if they are being bullied,” he shared. “Bullying can really hurt people’s feelings and I’m glad we’re helping to end bullying.”

To learn more about Walton County Boys & Girls Club, visit www.bgcncg.com/waltonclub.