Inspiration
My mom is a middle school teacher, and she wanted something like this. Her students sometimes don't feel like engaging in class, and this helps her encourage them to do so.
What it does
The teacher can log into the website and input class lists, organized by class period number. Then they can ask their Amazon Echo... "ask random student for period (n)". Alexa will announce a name at random.
How I built it
Authentication and database are built as microservices on Firebase. Alexa code is running on Lambda.
Challenges I ran into
- Account linking between Firebase and Alexa isn't supported out of the box, so I had to build my own OAuth flow.
- APL is still a work in progress, so some parts of its documentation and implementation were difficult to understand.
- Calling Firebase from Lambda can be slow if you don't optimize your code and make sure that your functions stay "warm".
Accomplishments that I'm proud of
I've built an OAuth account linking flow for Firebase, which I might be able to publish in the future.
What I learned
APL, Firebase, OAuth. I also learned about FERPA and what my users might have to be aware of, at least in the US.
What's next for Random Student Picker
I plan to do some general cleanup, as well as publishing versions for mobile and other voice assistants. Might try to monetize somehow. I also want to make the invocation name and other verbiage more generic, since this could have applications outside of the classroom.
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