Inspiration
There were several incidents where I I forgot about our meeting time to do a group project for a class. We used Facebook messengers to chat and set up the meeting time but I tend to face problems with my phone or my Facebook account which gave me some troubles to check the time or any important messages we have discussed. From that, I thought of using Alexa; I searched for similar skills that I could use in Alexa but I couldn't find any suitable one which made me to decide to develop my own skills. This event was definitely a great opportunity for me to put my thoughts into an action.
What it does
Notify considers a community as a room. If you are to find a room of your interest in Notify, you can search and enter any rooms to check some announcements. If there is no room of your interest, you can always create one. Notify allows users to make as many room as they want based on their purposes or passions. For instance, if you are to sell several used-items, you can simply create a room to sell and buy those items. Or you can create a room that shares informations for a certain class of a school. If a room is created, you can make or listen to announcements. Notify classifies announcements by the time they were created, and the people who made them which makes users to be able to search for a specific announcement.
How I built it
I built this skill using AWS lambda python and Dynamodb.
Challenges I ran into
Everything was challenging for me because it was not only the first time to develop Alexa skill, but also the first time to use Amazon Web Service - AWS lambda and Dynamodb. It was my first time to use NoSQL database and I believe that works like this, nosql database was easier to implement my skill.
Accomplishments that I'm proud of
I was very proud that I finished developing the skill. Thanks to very intuitive documentations, developing the skill was easier than projects that use other tools. Also it was my first time to try out Hackathon, so I am proud of myself on submitting my result.
What I learned
The main thing I learned was AWS. I have only heard about Amazon Web Service until I got to do this project which made me to learn and experience more about AWS. Now, I can use lambda and dynamodb. Moreover, I learned deeply about Amazon Alexa and how it works.
What's next for Notify
I have a lot more ideas for Notify; categorizing rooms, identifying users and notifying some recommended announcements according to the users' interests. Providing users' potential interests by their state. It was a great experience for me to learn about Alexa and its skills. I am planning on updating the skill after judging is done and developing more different skills that are useful for the users.
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