Dictionary Game

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  Homepage Screenshot

This project was inspired by The Wiki Game as well as the vast possibilities afforded by Amazon Web Services. Our infrastructure uses many AWS resources -- a decision founded on the desire to push this app beyond a game and explore the data that can be collected from user interaction. Alas, the last step in the process, examining the collected data, was out of our reach in this time period. But we created a game that provides an interesting way to explore the relationships between words and those interactions are being stored in the cloud for future use.

Many web applications are moved to AWS after they're built, migrated to take advantage of the scalability of AWS. We wanted to build something that started with AWS, to maximize our understanding of those tools and the potential they hold. We used Cognito for authentication, DynamoDB as our storage layer, Lambda to handle API requests, and the API gateway to handle RESTful requests to the Lambda.

This structure allowed us to work on equal portions of the project. Cordelia is almost finished with her BA in CS, while Meghan is partway through completing a CS minor. With this structure, Meghan could create the Python backend while Cordelia built a frontend and wrangled the infrastructure between the two.

We also used several other APIs to source words and definitions from online dictionaries. This included the datamuse API for associated word searches; a dictionary API for the definitions; and a random word generator for generation of the start and end words.

Neither of us has much front-end development experience, so the interface is lacking in some respects -- we focused on the workflow portion of the user experience so we could create a game that was fun and engaging.

See the code here: https://github.com/nothingstar1/DictionaryGame

Built With

• amazon-web-services
• css
• html
• javascript
• jquery
• python