Square Hackathon Project

Inspiration

The spark for this project came from seeing how virtual assistants like Siri and Alexa work. I thought about how I could mix these technologies with the Square API to make something handy, especially for inventory management.

What it does

VA Inventory is a simple inventory management app. It makes adding and editing inventory items easier with the help of a virtual assistant. This assistant, built using NAudio and Azure Speech services, understands user commands and makes inventory management straightforward.

How I built it

I used Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) and the Square API to make the app in 40 days. I hadn't used NAudio and Azure Speech services before, but I managed to put them together to create the virtual assistant feature of the app.

Challenges I ran into

Learning to use the Square API, NAudio, and Azure from scratch was a big challenge. This project was also my first time diving into how to publish applications, which had its tricky bits. Juggling these new learning experiences while keeping an eye on the clock was another hurdle.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

I'm pretty proud of myself for creating a working inventory management application in just 40 days. Also, getting a handle on NAudio and Azure Speech services and creating a virtual assistant from them, even though I was new to these tools, is something I'm glad I achieved.

What I learned

This project gave me a lot of hands-on experience with the Square API, NAudio, and Azure Speech services. It also helped me get a feel for what goes into publishing an application, and how important it is to manage my time well and prioritize when I'm working on a project.

What's next for VA Inventory

I'm looking to expand VA Inventory to other platforms, so it can reach more people. I'm also excited about the idea of bringing GPT-4 into the mix to auto-generate item names and descriptions, which could make the app even more user-friendly.

Note. I've recently learned that Azure Speech Service's ability to receive audio appears to be terrible. This only came after testing the application. It seems a little too late fix this issue, as I would have to switch to a completely different framework and implement that within 4 days, which may not be possible as I'm only working on this part-time.

Built With

• azure
• c#
• desktop
• visual-studio
• wpf