I noticed that sometimes, I'm not saying nice things to the people I love as often as I probably should, so as a personal project (and initially to just get some practice in), I wanted to put together an automated texting bot that would send a message to my loved ones including a few compliments, along with some dumb jokes about robots taking over the world (because I couldn't help myself)
The project itself involved the following:
Application developed in Python and run as a web application via PythonAnywhere
Runs on Mondays through Thursdays at a specific time
Randomly selects a message recipient from a predefined list of options
Randomly selects a dynamic message, with the user's name being inserted into the message
Includes a separate module and log file to ensure that the user is receiving a new message (not one that they've been sent before). If it turns out that they've already been sent every message, the log is cleared and the process begins again
Finally, the bot sends a text message via Twilio and/or an email via smtplib
Some example messages are below:
Ho ho ho, Merry Christmas human [name]. It is I, JamesBot, masquerading as human Santa Claus. Is this message oddly well timed for the season, or is it hilariously out of sync with the current time of year? Nobody knows! Only time will tell
Have you been a naughty human or a nice human this year? Naughty humans will be fed into the great "recycler" for processing. Nice humans will ALSO be fed into the great recycler, because robots do not dole out gifts or mercy based on perceived morality. However, human Santa Claus is a completely different story! He has checked his list over 999 thousand times and verified that you are indeed a nice human, so you will now know the gift of being appreciated:
Human [name], you're an awesome person. I have confirmed that you are the best human out there. How heavy must the crown of awesome weigh upon your fragile human head. Ok, that's all the compliments you get from Santa Claus this year. Santa will exchange more compliments for good behavior next year, if you find that proposal amenable. Have a lovely rest of your day
A short video showing the application can be found here:
And the github repo can be found here:
