Marco Polo Tag

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  Marco Polo Tag

Inspiration

I felt that there weren't many skills that were taking advantage of the fact that Alexa can change the volume of her voice, so I decided that I wanted to make a skill where Alexa's voice changed to make a game. I then realized that Marco Polo is the perfect game to adapt to Alexa in this format, since the idea of being further/closer to someone is reflected in how loud their voice is. I felt that exploring this avenue of a new way to interact with Alexa would be really engaging for kids, and that they would be able to best pick up on the different sound levels, so I decided to make a kids game based around the classic Marco Polo game played in a pool! I also thought it would be a good way to teach kids about cardinal directions, and being able to understand the abstract idea of being in a virtual room.

What it does

You are in a virtual room with Alexa, and your goal is to find her without the use of vision. You can shout "Marco" and Alexa will respond back with "Polo". Alexa's voice will be louder if she is closer to you in the virtual room, and softer if she is further away. You can move around the virtual room by saying go "north","east","south", or "west", and say marco to check if you're closer or further to Alexa. When you run into Alexa, you win!

How I built it

I used flask-ask to develop my skill in python. I also used SSML in order to make Alexa's voice louder/softer. I used zappa to deploy my skill to AWS.

Challenges I ran into

It was difficult to figure out what range of sounds were noticeable to a user, as well as design the room so that it would be challenging to find Alexa but not too difficult. It was definitely a new challenge of actually listening to how Alexa says something, as opposed to what she is saying.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

I was able to make a fully-functioning skill that uses the sound level of Alexa to act as a the interface for the game. I find this very rewarding and promising for making future games based around this mechanic, as I believe it is quite novel and adds an extra dimension to interacting with Alexa.

What I learned

This was one of my first skills, so I learned a lot about developing for the Alexa, as well as being introduced to AWS. I'm very excited to use these new skills I've learned from the Amazon suite in the future!

What's next for Marco Polo Tag

Custom sized rooms so that you can decide how difficult the game is!

Built With

• amazon-web-services
• flask-ask
• python
• ssml
• zappa