I am Grootu: Creating my First Alexa Skill

As a child of the 80's I come from the age of the internet where it was similar to the wild west, only we didn't know it at the time... Men were men, women were women and girls on BBS boards were almost certainly guys in real life.

Being an aspiring developer who is in the process of starting my own self-employed ventures, I like to keep things fresh when it comes to learning new skills. I'm not a fan of wasting hours nosing through books, courses or articles online. I need practical examples!!

Instead of going and doing a boring courses somewhere (yawn), I decided to create my first Alexa skill as a test to see how easy/difficult they are to make.

I produced I am Grootu as my first skill.

The skill took around 30 hours, including going through verification multiple times. 30 hours?! I hear you cry. Yes, I am old and slow...

Actually my skill was originally called I am Groot. I checked the Amazon skill store and there were 3 other skills there, all clearly fan made. Excellent, I thought! I should be good to go...

It seems that nowadays Amazon won't let you use words that are protected under copyright to display in your description,or more annoyingly to launch skills.

My solution? I did the only thing that seemed logical to a child of the 80's. I decided to turn Groot Japanese and made I am Grootu instead.

Love it, or hate it it made me laugh for about a minute...!

I am Grootu

Talk to Grootu and ask him anything - he knows all. See if you can find something he doesn't know!