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A tour of selected exoplanets. Use voice or the rocket icon to more to the next exoplanet.
Inspiration
The Kepler mission discovered thousands of worlds, expanding our vision and knowledge of the universe.
What it does
Alexa acts as a front end to query the NASA Exoplanet Archive. Based on the data it receives, it selects an appropriate piece of concept art to illustrate the planet and displays the retrieved data in a user-friendly way, comparing it to planets in our solar system.
How I built it
I used the alexa skills kit for python to communicate with the kplr open source program developed by Dan Foreman-Mackery (whom I credit) to retrieve that data and publicly available pictures from NASA and related organizations (whom I also credit). I viewed the ask source and some samples to get started and when I encountered challenges. I used the developer's console (including the excellent multimodal display editor and the simulator) , the Lambda Management console, and logs in CloudWatch.
Challenges I ran into
The documentation is not as helpful as it could be. The examples were more so and reading the ask skill kit source was a life-saver. The display simulation is very helpful, but does not reliably show when images are clipped. I had to use a Amazon Fire 10 HD and Show stand to verify that the graphics worked. I don't have an Echo Spot, but I did check the display in the simulator (which I don't entirely trust).
Accomplishments that I'm proud of
The visual beauty of the application, the touch wrappers on the "rocket" icon I added to make the skill more visual and more fun. I randomized the response phrasing to make the skill conversion natural and not robotic.
What I learned
I learned about APL, which is a great tool, even in its infancy. I learned to navigate the python version of ask. I had been working in node.js, but the backend used python, so I switched.
What's next for strange new worlds
I have communicated with the PyKe project team, who develops tools for exoplanet scientists. I'd like to add support for light curves -- who knows, it might become voice-enable tool for exoplanet researchers!
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