Inspiration
We're high school students trying to start a club. The first thing you need is a way to communicate with members in order to send announcements, answer questions, keep everyone in the loop. Good mailing list services cost money, and we weren't about to pay a monthly subscription just to send emails. So we asked ourselves: why pay for something we could build ourselves? Then we went completely overboard. That's Overkill Email, aka. Alya.ai.
What it does
OverkillEmail is a two part automated email system. First, a Q&A bot reads incoming emails and replies with an overly formal, AI generated response. Second, an admin newsletter system lets you manage a subscriber list and send announcements through a web dashboard.
How we built it
We built it across two languages. Java handles Gmail API integration, reading and sending emails, and running an HTTP server. Python runs a Flask server that manages subscribers, hosts the admin dashboard, and communicates with OpenAI's GPT-5.4. The two servers talk to each other via REST API calls. Everything is tied together with the Gmail API for email handling and a JSON file for subscriber storage.
Challenges we ran into
Trying to use Java and Python together via Rest API was a pretty difficult task to overcome. Additionally, the API credentials and keys were mind-numbingly tedious and obscure. Overcoming them was a nice refreshing boost of confidence for us.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We're proud that it actually works end to end. Someone sends a casual email like "sounds good" and within seconds receives a three paragraph formal response. For a first hackathon, building two communicating servers in different languages with real AI integration and a working web dashboard felt like a real accomplishment. We also solved our original real world problem; we now have a free, functional mailing list for our club.
What we learned
We learned how to use the Gmail API with OAuth authentication in Java, how to build a REST API with Flask in Python, how to connect servers running different languages via HTTP requests, how to use the OpenAI API for creative AI generation, and how to manage credentials and Git version control under pressure. Most importantly we learned that trial and error is a valid and effective development strategy.
What's next for Overkill Email
We plan on adopting it for our hardware club at school, allowing for a free, easy way to reach our members. We also want to add a signup page so club members can subscribe themselves, scheduled newsletter sending, an email archive page showing past exchanges, and smarter filtering so the bot can distinguish between questions, complaints, and general messages and respond accordingly. The goal is to make it useful for any student organization that needs a free, automated communication system with a sense of humor.
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