Numbers Trivia

4 min readJan 22, 2019

Numbers Trivia is a multi modal skill that educates children on the facts about the numbers, its importance in mathematics and significance of all the dates.

Motivation

In today’s world, children seem to be practically born with an electronic device in their hand. Most experts agree that children under the age of three do not need to be punching the keyboard or clicking the mouse. However, research points to the positive effects of technology in children’s learning and development, both cognitive and social. Once a child turns three, they evolve into a new stage of development. One that includes concrete learners interested in speaking, writing, drawing and numbers. These young ones are also active and mobile, needing frequent changes and physical experiences. Technology use in the classroom can meet the needs of these developmental changes, especially exploration, changing styles of play and working at their own pace. At this age, and as they grow into adolescents, students also exhibit a variety of different learning styles. Appropriate use of technology can individualize and enrich the lessons, giving every student what they need to succeed.

Technology Engages Students and Creates Motivated Learners
Technology Facilitates Communication — With Peers and Parents
Technology Enhances Individual Learning and Growth
Technology Brings The World Into The Classroom
Technology Teaches Real-World Skills

Numbers Trivia is a small attempt in this direction to move towards this future where our children get the best benefit from the beautiful future we are building together.

Features of the skill

Numbers Trivia uses the famous numbersapi API for getting facts related to numbers and dates and presents it to Alexa users in an elegant fashion. It is a multi modal skill and has both voice and visual aspect through which the user can interact with their Alexa device using this skill.

This is a great skill that helps the young bright minds to learn numbers and stories about dates in a beautiful and interactive manner. Just give the skill a test run and you will fall in love with it.

Numbersapi is an elegant API designed to bring meaning to your metrics and stories to your dates. This skill uses this free API to provide the users those great interesting facts about the numbers they use in their daily life.

Skill Invocation

“Alexa, open Numbers Trivia”
“Welcome to the Numbers Trivia skill! I can give you many interesting facts about the numbers, their significance in the world of mathematics. I can also tell all the great historical facts any date is known for.”

“Help!”
“You can ask me questions like, ‘Give me a fact about number 42’; ‘What is significance of 42 in mathematics?’; ‘What is special about 5th September?’”

“What is special about 5th September?”
“September 5th is the day in 1816 that Louis XVIII has to dissolve the Chambre introuvable (‘Unobtainable Chamber’).”

“Give me a fact about number 42.”
“42 is the number of laws of cricket.”

“Tell me a fact about any random number.”
“33 is the temperature at which water boils according to the Newton scale.”

“What is the significance of 100 in mathematics?”
“100 is the square of 10 (in scientific notation it is written as 102).”

“Tell me the importance of today.”
“January 1st is the day in 1998 that the European Central Bank is established.”

Video Demonstration

Link to the skill

Challenges

As this was my first Alexa Multi modal skill, it took a significant amount of time for me to learn the Alexa Presentation Language and develop the entire skill. Moreover, tuning the display parameters in the APL document and using commands for the Pager skill and Karaoke skill was the most challenging task in creating the skill.

Road to the future

Numbers Trivia skill is still in its primitive stage and needs to undergo a lot of development as of now. New features are to be added and it has to be made more interactive than now for making the skill more children friendly.