This sounds stupid but please help me !

I am really sad I still can't figure out what to do with my proposal and forums is my last resort. I urge you guys out there who can help please give me some advice.

Senario:

I want to make a Email and IRC application. For the email application, I will use Visual Basic 6. My question is I need help on IRC application/client. I want to make a application so people can use it for IRC instead of Khaled Mardem-Bey's mIRC.

I'm not talking about mIRC scripts like Phantasia, Scoop, etc. I want to make a complete original application which my teacher claims VB is possible to do it but he not sure how to do it. [duh]

I would request help from you guys to give me resources [web URL] and information which will help in giving me a structure on how to make the application work. Please advice other tools besides VB because one of my friends claims I can't do with VB and that confused me about my lecturer.

Above of that, recommend me other tools in developing an interface, preferably in 3D. Thank you guys.

Note: Please give me as much information as you can because I want to make this a very big project while not ripping Khaled Mardem-Bey's idea [mIRC]

Thank you for taking the effort to read this topic. Please don't laugh at me for my stupidness that I can't develop a program on my own as it's my project.

If possible, state information regarding my email client but needn't be in big scale.