XKCD As A Service (xkcd-aas)

Testing code for SMS (Since India does not have MMS receiving capability yet)
WhatsApp Results

Inspiration

We wanted to demonstrate the pervasive power of the internet, and decided to have some fun along the way. XKCD webcomics are pretty popular and funny, so we went ahead and implemented and offline(SMS) and online(WhatsApp) search service that returns an xkcd.

What it does

It utilizes the native SMS and the WhatsApp UIs to provide a search based functionality supported with a webhook server deployed on Beanstalk.

How we built it

With Node, Express, AlgoliaSearch, the XKCD Server, and of course, VS Code.

Challenges we ran into

Webhooks functionality with Twilio APIs
Limited Searching features
Server connection breaks from XKCD's service (Had to use a HTTP Keep-Alive connection instead)

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We actually did it, despite the odds pointing otherwise! We had to make this application fun, easy and most of all, accessible. We also analyzed a random web server on the internet(in this case XKCD's) and actually drew info out of it!

What we learned

A bunch! Communicating across different APIs, running async code in sync on JS, collecting data from a web server, analyzing it and pushing it to another(XKCD -> Algolia) and using and customizing search and messaging services to this project's use!