johnkeefe.net

Nearly every day, someone in our family asks Alexa for the day's weather. The default response is fine -- high temp, low temp, sun or rain.

But given our three nor'easters, intense wind chills, and high-wind days, that wasn't enough. How much rain? When will it start? How much snow? How cold will it feel?

We needed something better.

Fortunately the US National Weather Service does a fantastic job writing up little descriptions of what's in store for every spot in the country. It's been my go-to source for years. Could I get Alexa to say that?

Short answer: Yes, I could. And now you can add "Better Weather" to your Alexa, too. For free. (In the US only, for now.)

For a longer description of how I made it, read on. 

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(This post originally appeared on the Opennews Source blog.)

The students’ eyes opened wide in a mix elation and evil-mad-scientist.

Lines of code projected at the front of the class had just done something in the real world: They sent a tweet. And you could see it, right there on the internet.

The power of this little exercise was crystal clear to the undergraduates. And they couldn’t hide their giddiness.

“Use this only for good,” I admonished.

They had followed along as I built basic Twitter bot. You can do it, too.

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As the kids hustle to get out the door, the question always pops up: What’s the weather going to be?

So this week’s #MakeEveryWeek project is an internet-driven forecast bot for our entryway.

It combines kid drawings, cool LEDs, a wifi-connected chip and an online weather service to display the forecast.

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