Inspiration
I wanted to create an Alexa skill for the 'Amazon Alexa Skills Challenge: Kids' that both my toddler and Kindergartener would enjoy. Since they both love helping in the kitchen as well as pretending to cook, I made a game where they can mix up an imaginary soup. The skill also encourages some physical movement since my little users always have an abundance of energy to burn!
What it does
This game asks kids to interactively play with an invisible soup in lots of fun ways. They may be asked to add a sheep sound to their soup, find toys to add to it, help mix it, blow on it, etc. Users can direct the actions more explicitly such as 'add bananas to soup', 'give Mickey Mouse the soup', 'eat soup', 'put soup in microwave', or they can say 'You choose' or 'I don't know' to let Alexa decide what to do next. To keep the game interesting, the soup name, the ingredients Alexa selects, and some of the responses vary from game to game.
Older kids and parents can see if they can figure the combination to making a Super Soup, as there are several actions the user must ask to do to the soup to get that qualification. But all kids can have fun along the way, even if Alexa judges the soup they made as tasting like a stinky sock.
How I built it
I started from one of the Alexa SDK examples on GitHub, and modified it. This project uses the Alexa Skill Kit, Node.js and AWS Lambda.
Challenges I ran into
I originally had the questions Alexa asks to be more open ended, to encourage children to get creative in what they would try to do with the soup. It worked too well in that my kids were too creative, trying lots of phrases that hadn't been accounted for. After I changed the prompts to give more guidance to steer them towards a few specific suggestions, they had a lot more accurate hits in the response.
Another challenge was to allow enough time for the kids to fetch a toy as an ingredient. My solution was to add a song clip in so the child can have more than the usual 8 seconds to complete the task and respond.
Accomplishments that I'm proud of
I was proud to be able to expose my children to the development process, and to be able to create an Alexa skill that made us all laugh. As a bonus, it was incredibly valuable to the development process to have my target audience literally in house.
What I learned
Small changes in wording can make a big difference in usability. My first version of this skill was named 'Silly Soup' but was ultimately unlaunchable by my son because his pronunciation of Silly sounds like Siwwy. Because of that, 'Super Soup' was born.
What's next for Super Soup (Alexa Skill)
- Watch other kids using this skill, to see their reactions and frustrations, and adjust the skill accordingly
- Include more physical options, such as giving the child the option to fetch a stuffed animal or doll to try the soup
- Even more variation with the current responses and options
- Enhance the Echo Show experience
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