Inspiration
While working with younger children, I realized that some kids struggle to find the words for how they are feeling. I wanted to make a game or activity that helped children identify and express what the are feeling.
What it does
Through the use of story telling, the game identifies the emotions of a fictional character, Ziggy. Ziggy tells the player a fun short story and how he felt during the experience of the story. Next, Ziggy asks the player of the game to show him how they are feeling. Players have the option of acting or drawing how Ziggy is feeling.
How I built it
I built the game by utilizing Amazon Web Services (S3, Lambda, RDS, and Beanstalk). I used Python on Lambda for the base of the Alexa skill. The python script then communicates with a php api on Beanstalk that pulls content from a relational database. The relation database mainly stores hyperlinks to audio for the game that is stored on S3. For content, I used sound and music under the creative commons license and for story audio, I recorded a friend reading the script.
Challenges I ran into
One challenge I had was trying to figure out a way to keep the game going without the skill closing out if a player did not give a response fast enough. I was able to solve this by playing music and prompting the user if they needed more time.
Accomplishments that I'm proud of
I am proud that I had an idea and was able to execute and build it.
What I learned
I learned playing audio for an Alexa skill is limited to 90 seconds per response. In addition, I learned a lot about Amazon Web Services and how extensive it is!
What's next for Feelings with Ziggy
I would like to add more functionality to Ziggy. For example, a call Ziggy feature in which Ziggy basically has a conversation with the child about how they are feeling. Ziggy then walks the child through any difficult emotions the child is having.
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