Inspiration
As we progress forward in todays world, we tend to forget where we come from and what has happened in the past to pave the way for the lives we are experiencing today. That is why I decided to create a really simple Alexa Skill that simply tells the user a daily history fact.
What it does
HistDose, as the name suggests, provides the user with a daily dose of history when Alexa is communicated with. The user is prompted to pick one of 3 categories(Sports, Politics or Entertainment). Then Alexa searches through Wikipedia to find an important event from the category that was chosen and reads aloud that fact to the user.
How I built it
This Alexa Skill was built by creating a Lambda function using AWS then I was able to create an Alexa Skill and connect that function with the skill. I coded the skill with node.js and by reading through the Alexa quick start and documentation as well as looking at some of the sample skills provided.
Challenges I ran into
This was my first time working with AWS and Alexa and even Node.js so everything I did took some time to get done and work. I was provided with a lot of help from Rob @ Amazon. And I have experience with Java and HTML/CSS and iOS development. This hackathon I decided to try something new out and dip my shoes in something new as all hackathons are about. I'm glad I chose to.
What I learned
I was able to knowing nothing about AWS and Node.js to having a pretty good working knowledge of both and will continue to further my knowledge in them and will certainly get even better with them.
What's next for HistDose
HIstDose has started as a daily history fact skill for Alexa but there is a lot of growth for it and I will add more categories for the user to chose from and even have it pull data from the internet to see what will happen on the current date in the future.
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