Episode 19: Building Your First AI Project – Beginner Tools, Demos & Guidance

Welcome back to Tech Break by Friday, where we make big tech topics feel small and doable. In today’s episode, I’m sharing the story of how I joined a hackathon, used a tool called Lovable, and built an AI-powered research assistant — all in under 48 hours. Even though I have a background in AI, I wanted to test how beginner-friendly vibe-coding really is. Using just natural language prompts (and no manual coding), I created a working MVP that connects with Zotero, fetches academic papers, and allows users to chat with their research library. This episode is all about showing you that you can build your own AI project, even if you’re just getting started. I’ll walk you through: * The exact tools I used (Lovable, Supabase, Clerk, Zotero) * The problem I was trying to solve as a Master’s student * What the MVP includes (chat interface, Zotero sync, persistent history) * How you can recreate the project using prompts — no heavy coding required