This project asks students to develop a concept for a Twitter bot (an automated account) and create the bot using a Google Sheets template. 

Twitter bots have made headlines in the past few years for their malicious implementation as fake accounts pushing propaganda. But there are also hundreds of non-malicious bots on Twitter serving informational, artistic, and experimental purposes. Twitter's relatively open automation policies allow for both "good" and "bad" accounts.

For this project, students will be creating a non-malicious bots based on concepts they develop through the course readings and their own exploration of bots on Twitter. This fits in with a unit on social media and automation and allows students to both learn about this area of online communication and creatively participate on the Twitter platform.

There are a number of steps to set up the Twitter account and the Google Sheet template that will power the bot. Full documentation is available, but the instructor should complete the set up on his or her own prior to offering this assignment, and the instructor should be willing to help students with the set-up if necessary. The learning curve is high mostly because of the set-up process.