Month: June 2017

Got Alexa working!

I modified an existing Alexa “Give me a Fact” skill to turn it into a skill that quotes the things that Ruairi loves to say.

There seem to be general skill types – trivia, how to, facts, news flash, etc. I think you can start with a blank lamda code, or use one of these boilerplates. There is also some sort of SDK I found that I had no idea how to use. Am really going to have to spend some time learning python or node.js. Wonder which one is more promising?

I want to create a skill that will answer questions about how to navigate an office.

Finishing Pi setup, being a bringer of light.

First, I finished setting up the Pi. I guess even after you have it connected you do a system update from the command line. My first sudo commands! Full system upgrade!

  • sudo apt-get update – go fetch the latest package information.
  • sudo apt-get upgrade – And answer Y. Upgrades all the packages. This stage will take a while.
  • sudo shutdown -r now – Reboot the machine.

I’d like my summer project to be around voice control. Going to spend a few hours looking at various projects and tutorials, from Alexa to Google.

This Alexa project looks promising, but I’m nowhere near being able to pull of something with this level of complexity.

 

Decided to get more basic – making a led turn on and off with a button.

After endless hours of trying to figure out why the pi was crashing and turning off as soon as I plugged it into the cobbler. Voltage testing, spinning things around, nothing worked. I even bent some pins in frustration. Finally, I tried an old breadboard I had laying around. Turns out that the breadboard that was send in my canakit was malfunctioning. I sent them a note on Amazon. Hope they expedite a new one to me. How annoying, to have wasted so much time of a shoddy board.

Video of light switch working!

IMG_0004

 

 

 

 

Setting up: laptop and raspberry pi

Installed Node.JS and github on laptop. Put together the raspberry Pi, installed its OS, and can see it running on the monitor. I’m stunned to see how much easier it is to understand it is than the old Arduino Leonardo and Uno boards I was playing with years ago. The years have been kind to these little micro-computers.

Things I am realizing I will need to learn if I want to do anything slightly ambitious with Alexa and/or the Pi:

JSON
Python
Node.js

Thought to bookmark: Google has a Cloud Speech API and Google Assistant SDK. There’s a tutorial on how to build an assistant I should find.

Resources discovered:

magpi magazine
https://aiyprojects.withgoogle.com
https://guides.github.com/activities/hello-world/
MIT’s “scratch” – a way for kids to learn the basic syntax of code

 

 

 

Microsoft Bot Platform

Came across an end-to-end, step-by-step depiction of building a bot using Microsoft services.  Once again, node.js is mentioned. I’ll watch Lynda beginners tutorial on it tomorrow, perhaps also see what’s up on code academy.

 

 

 

 

Getting Alexa to say something

Over the weekend I spent a few hours learning how to get the Alexa to do things. I set up an AWS account on Amazon, as well as a Amazon Dev account. Took this tutorial, which was a great, no-dev skills needed intro into how to connect with Alexa on a very basic level. It was really fun being able to make Alexa say thing. FINALLY.

I didn’t even have to hurt my brain.  The interface for creating a very basic skill is mad-libs fun.You set an “invocation” (wake word for your program). You list a bunch of ways someone might ask a question. Then a bunch of ways she may answer. Built in machine learning makes adds forgiveness and flexibility toward the invariably variable syntax humans will use.

I also found a function that lets you type something and Alexa says it. Super simple. Wonder if there’s something we can use for user testing here. A “ghost in the shell” parlor trick to learn about people’s interactions with a voice program.

Here is a motherlode of helpful resources.