You Choose

Inspiration

Brian and I love going out to eat, but we could never settle on a good restaurant. One of us would suggest a name, only for the other to shoot it down. It got annoying as it went in circles. We realized a big issue was that the suggestions felt personal, so having a computer make them takes the hurt feelings element out of the equation. But even more importantly, a computer would be able to know all the restaurants near us, making it bring in restaurants neither of us had ever heard about.

What it does

Clients ask Alexa to choose a restaurant, and it chooses one randomly from the area. If the client is unhappy, they can keep asking alexa to pick a new one.

How we built it

Collaborating over the phone because we were in different locations over winter break, Matthew Gunton focused on building the backend funcitonality, such as linking it to Google Maps API, while Brian Snyder focused on the frontend, such as successful integration with the Alexa Presentation Language.

Challenges we ran into

A lack of community support for the errors we ran into made it really hard to spot simple syntax errors. Especially when implementing APL, it took the two of us combing the internet to find the one line of code to make Alexa accept the format.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Beautiful APL design Successful Google Maps integration Powerful use of the attributes property on the request envelope

What we learned

Importance of using git branches and clear communication renewed appreciation for YouTube tutorials and StackOverflow Questions

What's next for You Choose

Expanding it beyond just restaurants to all points of local interest

Built With

• apl
• node.js