Stay Local - Community News and Attractions

Voice activated local companion guide using Amazon Alexa. Can be used when traveling to discover local news, and attractions.

BeginnerWork in progress4 hours757

Stay Local - Community News and Attractions

Things used in this project

Hardware components

Raspberry Pi 3 Model B

With USB Microphone attached and analog speakers/earphones connected.

Software apps and online services

Amazon Web Services AWS Lambda

We used AWS Lambda to host the code logic for our skill.

Amazon Alexa Alexa Voice Service

We installed the Alexa Voice Service on our Raspberry Pi, effectively making the Pi work similar to an Echo.

Story

Discovering your community can be hard. We wanted to make it easier to support your local businesses, entertainment & community groups. We wrote the "Stay-Local" Alexa skill to help citizens discover & join their local communities and help cities get more engagement from their citizens. We used the New York Times API to identify local news, and added information for top attractions.

We installed Alexa on Pi for an Echo type device, so the skill can be run on the device. With Stay-Local, businesses don't worry that they're wasting money on suspicious "engagement" metrics, because the Stay-Local only runs when a citizen wants to know what's around.

Stay-Local's simplicity makes finding new communities to be a breeze. There's no web page covered in advertisements- just a daily report of what's happening with your neighbors and fellow citizens.

Stay local, with Stay-Local!