“First Name Analysis” Alexa Skill

“First Name Analysis” Alexa Skill Spec What does your name mean? Build an Alexa skill which lets users learn about the “true” meaning of their first name. For a similar tool on the web, you can check out: [login to view URL] Example script: USER: Alexa, open Name Analysis ALEXA: Welcome to Name Analysis. I can help you understand whether your first name is helping or hurting you… Please tell me your first name… USER: James ALEXA: Hi, James. What’s your gender? USER: Male ALEXA: As a James, you have a natural interest in the welfare of your fellow man, and a desire to help and serve others in a humanitarian way. You are responsible and generous, although somewhat disorganized in your personal affairs… (etc. etc.) ALEXA: Would you like to try another name? USER: No ALEXA: Thank you for using Name Analysis. Remember your name can both help you and hurt you! Must have features: * Ask the user for a first name
 * Ask the user for a gender
 * Provide a name analysis that is customized to the user input
 * Every first name + gender combination should yield a unique name analysis
 * Any unique first name + gender combination should always yield the same name analysis
 * Let the user try out other names if they would like to
 Evaluation criteria: * Code quality:
 * Your code should be readable and well documented
 * Your codebase should be structured and well organized
 * Your skill should never ‘crash’ or fail to respond gracefully to user input
 * Your skill should exit gracefully where appropriate
 * Your skill should be able to pass Alexa certification, however you do not need to actually submit it to certification
 * Custom Skill Certifications Requirements: [login to view URL]
 * We are especially interested in your ability to conceive of and code a creative algorithm for generating each name analysis
 * Hint: do not simply copy/paste the output of the Kabalarians website; your name analyses should be different than theirs because you should come up with your own original algorithm
 * Your outputted name analysis paragraph itself should exhibit some creativity
 * Is hearing your name analysis fun and engaging?
 * Be ambitious! How else can you improve the skill beyond was is explicitly required in the spec? We appreciate original ideas!
 Submission instructions: When ready to submit, create a beta test of the skill (my account) and please also upload the code to my github. * You should decide how you are going to handle input that does not look like a name or gender. What will you do if the user fails to respond at all?
 * You need to create an algorithm that maps any first name and gender to a “name analysis”. A name analysis should be a paragraph of human readable text. Repeated queries of the same first name and gender input should return the same name analysis (i.e. it should not be random each time). Different names can have some overlapping words or phrases in their analysis, but in general try to create a unique output for each possible input.
 * Respond appropriately to common interruptions such as:
 * “Alexa, help.”
 * “Alexa, stop.”
 * “Alexa, repeat.”
 * etc.
 * Deploy and test your skill on an actual device (not just in the simulator)!