Hide and Seek

Inspiration

Seattle winter is cold and kids need to be entertained. Wouldn't it be fun if their imaginary friend answers when they play?

What it does

Alexa 'hides' somewhere in the room. The kids have to walk around and ask her if she's where they are looking. If they find her they win, otherwise Alexa wins. Kids with movement disabilities can point instead of walk around.

How I built it

• Alexa's dialog model.
• Node.js over Amazon Lambda to interact.

Challenges I ran into

Testing is hard when you don't have an Echo device. Alexa doesn't always understand what you are saying. For example "3 tries" is mostly parsed as 'free tries'. Making this kid friendly means Alexa should provide some direction in how to answer, since kids are less predictable than adults.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

Learned how to write Alexa skills. Learned how to use Lambda. Learned how to write in js and node.js.

What I learned

Start by deploying a functional skeleton, then enhance. Don't wait till it's perfect!

What's next for Hide and Seek

Some more human-like interactions that immerse the player in the feeling that Alexa sees them.

Built With

• alexa
• javascript
• lambda
• node.js