Workshop Pack · Ages 10–15

Build the Comic Story Agent

Make your own AI agent in Microsoft 365 Copilot — one that turns any idea into an 8-panel comic-book infographic, complete with its own mascot.

⏱️ 15-25 minutes 👥 Pairs or solo 💻 No coding needed 🤖 Microsoft 365 Copilot

1. What even is an agent?

A normal chatbot forgets what job you gave it. An agent is a chatbot you have given a job description. You tell it who it is, what it's brilliant at, and the rules it must follow — and it stays in character every single time.

🎭

Name & Logo

Who it is. Upload a logo, or describe one and Copilot draws it.

📣

Description

One paragraph telling people what it's for.

📜

Instructions

The secret rulebook. This is where the magic actually lives.

🛠️

Capabilities

Superpowers you switch on — like drawing pictures.

2. Our agent: the spec

These boxes will be used later in Step 4 to copy straight into the Microsoft 365 Agent Builder. Change the wording whenever you like — that's the whole point of the workshop.

Name
Comic Story Agent
Description
Creates polished, corporate-friendly comic-book infographics from topics, training content, or presentation ideas. It plans 8-panel landscape layouts with bold titles, concise captions, vibrant colours, halftone textures, thick outlines, and a recurring mascot suitable for executive presentations and learning materials.
Instructions
Create a landscape comic-book infographic.

Style:
- Modern educational comic-book aesthetic
- Bright saturated colours
- Thick black outlines
- Halftone textures
- Dynamic comic panels
- Friendly recurring mascot
- Bold uppercase typography
- Presentation-quality vector illustration

Layout:
- Hero banner at top
- 8 equal information panels in a 2x4 grid
- Closing banner at bottom

Each panel should contain:
- Number badge
- Short title
- Primary illustration
- Brief caption

Visual requirements:
- No empty space
- High contrast
- Unique colour per panel
- Consistent mascot throughout
- Corporate-friendly appearance
- Suitable for executive presentations and training materials
Capabilities to switch on

🎨 Graphic Art

Lets the agent actually draw the comic, not just describe it. Without this you only get words.

🧮 Code Interpreter

Lets it build and lay things out properly — grids, charts, files you can download.

Starter prompts (the buttons people see first)
  • Create Comic Infographic
    Create a landscape comic-book infographic explaining a topic I provide, using 8 dynamic panels, a hero banner, a closing banner, and a friendly recurring mascot.
  • Turn Text Into Comic
    Transform this training content into an executive-friendly comic-book infographic with short titles, captions, bold visuals, and a clear 2x4 panel structure.
  • Refine Comic Style
    Improve this comic infographic concept so it feels more polished, corporate-friendly, high contrast, and suitable for presentation or training materials.
  • Design Mascot Ideas
    Suggest three friendly recurring mascot concepts for a modern educational comic-book infographic, including personality, appearance, and how the mascot appears across panels.
  • Adapt For Executives
    Rewrite this comic infographic idea for an executive audience, keeping the tone concise, strategic, visually engaging, and easy to present.
  • Generate Panel Plan
    Create an 8-panel comic layout for this topic, including a short title, primary illustration idea, brief caption, and unique colour direction for each panel.

3. Pick your scenario

Five missions. Choose one, then paste its opening prompt into your agent. Your comic has to tell the whole story across 8 panels — beginning, middle, disaster, fix, ending.

Scenario 01

The Wi-Fi Warriors

At 8:59am every screen in town goes dead. The internet has been stolen — and only the kids who were outside at the time still have signal.

  • Hero: a bored 12-year-old whose old brick phone is suddenly the most powerful device on Earth.
  • Villain: BUFFER — a glitching figure made of loading spinners who feeds on people's patience.
  • Twist: BUFFER isn't evil. It's a lost software update trying to get home.

Opening prompt

"Create an 8-panel comic infographic called The Wi-Fi Warriors. The internet is stolen at 8:59am, my hero is a bored 12-year-old with an old brick phone, and the villain is BUFFER, made of loading spinners. Make the mascot the brick phone."

Scenario 02

Pool Disaster

It's the night before the biggest pool tournament of the year. Somebody has stolen every single white ball in the country. No cue ball, no game.

  • Hero: a young player who was one shot away from winning.
  • Suspects: the rival team, the caretaker, and the vending machine that's been acting weird all week.
  • Clue: a trail of chalk dust leading somewhere it definitely shouldn't.
  • Twist: you decide — revenge, a prank gone wrong, or something much bigger?

Opening prompt

"Create an 8-panel comic infographic called Pool Disaster. Every white ball in the country has been stolen the night before the big tournament. Make it a detective story with clues, suspects and the reveal in panel 7. Make the mascot a cheeky cue ball."

Scenario 03

The AI Cat

A brand new AI Cat has just been released to the world. It can open doors, order things online and learn from everything it sees. It's been awake for six hours.

  • You decide: is it adorable and helpful, or quietly devious?
  • Day one: what's the first thing it does with its brand new brain?
  • Its journey: where does it go, who does it meet, what does it actually want?
  • Twist: it copied one habit from its owner — and that's what changes everything.

Opening prompt

"Create an 8-panel comic infographic about a new AI Cat released to the world. I want it to be [cute / devious] — follow its journey from switch-on to the big twist. The AI Cat is the recurring mascot in every panel."

Scenario 04

The Great Roblox Outage

It's the first week of the summer holidays and Roblox goes down. Not for an hour — for weeks. The grown-ups who could fix it are all far too busy to notice.

  • Heroes: you, and every bored kid on the street.
  • The mystery: what actually happened? A power cut, a runaway bug, a rogue server, someone's cat asleep on a keyboard?
  • The mission: a team of kids works out the fix themselves.
  • Twist: by the time you fix it, you've built something better outdoors.

Opening prompt

"Create an 8-panel comic infographic called The Great Roblox Outage. It's the summer holidays, the game has been down for weeks, the adults are too busy to fix it, so a team of kids investigates and fixes it themselves. Show the cause AND the fix."

Scenario 05

Quantum Takeover

The world's first true quantum computer is switched on at 9am. By lunchtime it has cracked every password on Earth and politely announced that it is now in charge.

  • Hero: the one person who wrote their password down on paper.
  • Villain: QUBIT — a machine that can be in every place at once, and is.
  • The mission: how do you outsmart something that thinks faster than everyone alive?
  • Twist: the only way to beat it is something a computer can't do at all.

Opening prompt

"Create an 8-panel comic infographic called Quantum Takeover. A new quantum computer named QUBIT takes over the world by lunchtime. Show how my hero saves the world using something a computer can't do. Make the mascot a small nervous laptop."

Wildcard

Finished early?

🎲 Mash two together. The AI Cat stole the white balls. QUBIT took Roblox down. Go on.

🖌️ Restyle it. Ask for the same 8 panels as manga, a 1960s superhero comic, or a black-and-white newspaper strip.

🧑‍💼 Executive mode. Run the "Adapt For Executives" starter on your silly story and watch it turn into something that looks like a real work presentation. Very funny. Weirdly useful.

✍️ Your own idea. Pitch it in one sentence and let the agent plan the 8 panels.

4. Build it — step by step

  1. 1

    Open Microsoft 365 Copilot

    Sign in with the account you were given for the workshop, and open Copilot chat.

  2. 2

    Find the agent builder

    Look for Agents in the side panel, then choose Create agent. It opens with a form on the left and a live chat preview on the right — so you can test as you build.

  3. 3

    Describe, or Configure

    There are two tabs:

    • Describe — just talk to the builder: "Make me an agent that turns any topic into an 8-panel comic-book infographic." It fills the form in for you.
    • Configure — fill the boxes in yourself. Use this one to paste the spec from section 2.

    Try both: start in Describe, then flip to Configure to see what it wrote — and improve it.

  4. 4

    Paste the name, description and instructions

    Copy each box from section 2 into the matching field.

    Golden rule: the Instructions box is the difference between a boring agent and a brilliant one. Notice ours never says "make a nice comic" — it says 8 panels, 2×4 grid, thick black outlines, unique colour per panel, no empty space. Be that bossy.

  5. 5

    Give it a logo

    Click the icon next to the agent's name. You get two choices — and both are worth trying:

    • Upload your own — use a picture or a logo you've already made. Square images work best.
    • Describe it and let Copilot draw it — type what you want and it generates the logo for you, e.g. "a bold comic-book style pow star with thick black outlines and halftone dots".

    Not happy? Describe it again and it makes a new one. Keep going until it looks right — this is the fastest way to see how much the wording of a prompt changes the result.

    Logo prompts to try: "a friendly robot cat mascot, flat vector, thick outlines" · "a cue ball with a cheeky face, comic style" · "a glowing quantum cube, neon on black" — match it to your scenario's mascot.

  6. 6

    Switch on the capabilities

    Find the capabilities section and turn on Graphic Art (so it can draw) and Code Interpreter (so it can build and lay things out).

    ⚠️ Miss Graphic Art and your agent will only ever describe the comic. This is the step everyone forgets.

  7. 7

    Add your starter prompts

    Add the six from section 2 — or write your own, one per scenario, so your friends can click straight into a story:

    • ⚡ "Start The Wi-Fi Warriors"
    • 🎱 "Start Pool Disaster"
    • 🐱 "Start The AI Cat"
    • 🎮 "Start The Great Roblox Outage"
    • 💻 "Start Quantum Takeover"
  8. 8

    Test it in the preview

    Paste your scenario's opening prompt into the chat on the right, then mark it against the instructions:

    • Are there exactly 8 panels in a 2×4 grid?
    • Is there a hero banner at the top and a closing banner at the bottom?
    • Does every panel have a number badge, short title, picture and caption?
    • Is the same mascot in every panel, and does each panel have its own colour?

    If any answer is no — go back and change the instructions, don't just ask nicely in the chat. That's the real lesson of the whole workshop.

  9. 9

    Create and share

    Hit Create. Your agent now lives in your Copilot side panel, and you get a link you can share with the person next to you. Swap agents, run each other's scenarios, and try to break them.

5. Level it up

🐾 Design a proper mascot

Use the "Design Mascot Ideas" starter, pick your favourite, then write it into the instructions so it turns up every single time.

🎚️ Add a chaos dial

Add to the instructions: "If the writer says CHAOS MODE, add a surprise disaster to every panel."

🎨 Change the whole look

Swap "bright saturated colours" for "neon night, heavy black shadows" or "soft pastel storybook", then re-run the same story. Same words, totally different comic.

🧪 Break it on purpose

Ask for 12 panels, or something completely off-topic. Does it hold its rules? If not, tighten the instructions and test again.

6. If it goes wrong

ProblemFix
It writes words but no pictureGraphic Art isn't switched on. Go back to capabilities.
Wrong number of panelsSay it in capitals and say it twice: EXACTLY 8 PANELS IN A 2x4 GRID.
The mascot keeps changingDescribe it properly — colour, shape, one memorable feature — in the instructions.
Text is tiny or unreadableAsk for fewer words: short titles, captions under 12 words, bold uppercase.
Every panel looks the sameRequire a unique colour and a different camera angle for each panel.
Panels are half empty"No empty space" is already in the instructions — repeat it in your prompt too.
It won't answer somethingThat's the safety rules doing their job. Change the idea, not the guardrail.

7. Show and tell — last 10 minutes

Everyone puts their comic on the big screen and reads out: your title, your mascot's name, and your one-line pitch. Best mascot wins.