ArtNavi: Guided Creative Learning

The Project

ArtNavi is an AI-powered art learning assistant that helps young artists plan, create, and improve their artwork step by step. The goal of this app is to help users stay consistent, confident, and independent in their art learning, especially when they do not have access to a personal art teacher outside of class. This project was inspired by my experience leading a community art club that provides free weekend art lessons for newly immigrated, low-income, and English-learning families. In these classes, students are very motivated during lessons, but many struggle to continue practicing at home without guidance. Parents also often want to help, but do not have enough time, experience, or confidence in teaching art. I also experienced similar challenges myself when learning art independently, where it is easy to lose motivation or feel stuck without feedback. ArtNavi solves this problem by acting as a personal AI art tutor built in Unity using the OpenAI API. Users can describe or upload their drawing ideas, and the app generates a structured plan that breaks the artwork into simple steps. During the drawing process, users can chat with the AI teacher to ask questions, get feedback, or receive suggestions. The AI can respond with both text and image-based guidance, making it feel like a real interactive tutor. Users can also save their projects and track their progress over time to see their improvement and feel the sense of achievement when completing it. One of the main challenges during development was managing multiple AI features while keeping the app stable and responsive. Integrating the OpenAI API in Unity for both text and image responses was difficult, especially when handling asynchronous requests without freezing the UI. I also faced issues where different scripts were too dependent on each other, which caused bugs and made debugging harder. To solve this, I reorganized the project into a modular structure and separated systems like AI communication, UI, and data saving to reduce complexity and improve stability. What makes ArtNavi different is that it is designed for learning, not just generating art. It focuses on guiding users step by step, giving personalized feedback, and helping users build long-term creative habits instead of just producing final images. ArtNavi is currently free and shared through school programs and community outreach, especially for immigrant and English-learning families. My long-term goal is to improve accessibility through school partnerships and educational support programs.

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