Alexa Hemmingway

Inspiration

We wished to design and implement some creative algorithm. We initially wished to design a pun algorithm, but time constraints encouraged us to shift to poetry.

What it does

Alexa Hemingway uses an internal dictionary of over 60,000 words and twenty sentence structure templates to generate haikus on demand.

How we built it

We first programmed it in Java, converted it into JavaScript, and then integrated with Amazon Web Services, where the code is run. Interactions with Alexa were built upon a template and a local dictionary parsed from the WordNet database.

Challenges we ran into

Integrating with Amazon Web Services and debugging/learning JavaScript were our greatest challenges. Parsing the database into a locally-accessible data structure also provided a challenge.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Learning JavaScript and integrating our back-end code with AWS despite numerous setbacks and obstacles.

What we learned

JavaScript. Project management and coordination. JavaScript. Techniques for debugging methods for JavaScript.

What's next for Alexa Hemmingway

Ideally, we'd add a machine learning component for filtering out less coherent productions and add support for user-prompted topics.

Built With

• javascript
• love