Inspiration
When we heard there would be Amazon Echoes available to borrow we decided that we wanted to try and learn how to create custom skills for Alexa in order to expand our knowledge.
What it does
A person can ask Alexa general queries for a given database in such a way that the person can essentially have a conversation about the data and receive results/insights instantaneously. These Alexa queries would both be general enough to be applied to any DynamoDB table, and scalable in order to easily continue to use said queries even as the tables grow in size.
How we built it
After creating Amazon Web Services accounts, we began experimenting with Amazon's lambda functions that can tie into and handle events for Alexa sessions. We also created a DynamoDB table to store the data we would be referencing for our queries. Finally, we began attempting to create and run DynamoDB queries dynamically within the Lambda function and choose which query to be run based upon Alexa's interpretation of voice commands.
Challenges we ran into
Amazon Web Services have a steep learning curve and unfortunately we were ultimately unable to successfully establish a connection between our Lambda function and the DynamoDB table in order to attempt to run the queries we had designed.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
Gaining invaluable experience with Amazon Web Services and Amazon Alexa.
What we learned
How to design custom skills for Alexa. How different Amazon Web Services (such as Lambda, DynamoDB, and Pipeline) work and are interconnected with one-another.
What's next for Alexa Database Voice Queries
Hopefully we will be able to reconcile the issues surrounding connecting to the DynamoDB table and continue to pursue the creation of an intuitive skill for Alexa that can provide rapid insights and reports on data on command.
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