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README.md

Conversation

Chat with TJBot!

This recipe uses the Watson Assistant, Speech to Text, and Text to Speech services to turn TJ into a chatting robot.

Hardware

This recipe requires a TJBot with a microphone, a speaker, a Neopixel LED, and optionally a camera.

💡 If you have a Common Anode LED, change TJBot.HARDWARE.LED_NEOPIXEL to TJBot.HARDWARE.LED_COMMON_ANODE in conversation.js

📌 By default, TJBot expects Neopixel LEDs to be connected to GPIO PIN 18 and Common Anode LEDs to be connected to GPIO pins 19 (red), 13 (green), and 12 (blue). You may set which pins your LED is connected to by uncommenting the tjConfig.shine = {...} code block. See https://pinout.xyz for a complete pin diagram.

👋 By default, TJBot expects the servo to be connected to GPIO PIN 7. You may set which pin your servo is connected to by uncommenting the tjConfig.wave = {...} code block. See https://pinout.xyz for a complete pin diagram.

Build and Run

First, make sure you have configured your Raspberry Pi for TJBot by following the bootstrap instructions.

Next, go to the recipes/conversation folder and install the dependencies.

$ cd tjbot/recipes/conversation
$ npm install

Create instances of the Watson Assistant, Speech to Text, and Text to Speech services and download the authentication credentials file for each service. Combine each of these files into a single file named ibm-credentials.env and place it in the tjbot/recipes/translator folder. See ibm-credentials.sample.env for an example.

Make a copy the default configuration file and update it with your service credentials and the conversation workspace ID.

$ cp config.default.js config.js
$ nano config.js
<enter your credentials and the conversation workspace ID in the specified places>

Set up Watson Assistant using the following steps:

  1. Launch the Watson Assistant tool and create a new assistant.
  2. Click "Add dialog skill" and then "Import Skill."
  3. Upload the tjbot-skill-sample.json file.
  4. Go back to the Assistants screen and click the menu (with the three dots), and click "Settings."
  5. Click "API Details" in the left sidebar.
  6. Copy the "Assistant ID" and paste it into your config.js file

Run!

$ sudo node conversation.js

Note the sudo command. Root user access is required to run TJBot recipes.

Watson conversation uses intents to label the purpose of a sentence. For example when you ask TJBot "Please introduce yourself", the intent is to make an introduction. You can add your own new intents, but for now, we have started you off with a few intents:

  • Introduction. You can say phrases such as "Watson, please introduce yourself", "Watson, who are you", and "Watson, can you introduce yourself"
  • Joke. You can ask "Watson, please tell me a joke" or "Watson, I would like to hear a joke".

For a complete list, check the content of workspace-sample.json

An attention word is used so TJBot knows you are talking to it. The default attention word is 'tinker', but you can change it in config.js by changing robotName:

export default {
    assistantId: '', // add your assistant id from Watson Assistant
    hasCamera: true, // set this to false if your TJBot doesn't have a camera
    robotName: 'tinker', // set this to the name you wish to use to address your tjbot!
}

Troubleshoot

If you are having difficulties in making this recipe work, please see the troubleshooting guide.

Watson Services

License

This project is licensed under Apache 2.0. Full license text is available in LICENSE.

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md.