Essentials Guide to AIY Projects: Create a Voice Kit out now
By Russell Barnes. Posted
A quick intro to Python – short scripts, rapid results.
Our Essentials Guide to AIY Projects: Create a Voice Kit is now available as a free digital download.

Essentials Guide to AIY Projects: Create a Voice Kit
The digital magazine is designed to work with Google AIY Voice kit hardware, given away free with The MagPi #57. Further kits were sold separately as the Google AIY Projects Voice kit.
You can also buy a physical copy of our Essentials Guide from the new Raspberry Pi Press store.
Micro Center is selling the kits in the US. They have also created some pretty great video tutorials. Click here to find retailers in the UK and US selling the AIY Projects Voice Kits.
The physical kit contains a Voice HAT accessory board, microphone, speaker, LED button and a cardboard frame alongside a print copy of the new essentials guide. (These physical parts are not included with the free digital download).
There are some key changes between the original version and the new kit. Notably, the new kit has a new integrated button design that requires less assembly.

There is also a whole new API designed to make it far easier to program your Google AIY Projects Voice Kit.

According to Lucy Hattersley, editor of The MagPi and writer of the Essentials Guide to AIY Projects: Create a Voice Kit
Google AIY Projects brings do-it-yourself artificial intelligence (AI) to the maker community.
AIY Projects is a series of open-source designs that demonstrate how easy it is to add AI to your projects. We are thrilled to present the very first project, a kit that lets you explore voice recognition and natural language understanding.
You will build a cardboard device that uses the Google
Assistant to answer questions, like “how far away is the moon?” or “what is 18 percent of 92?”.
You can learn more about AIY Projects, and get help from The MagPi team and the Raspberry Pi community on the AIY Projects forum.
Russell runs Raspberry Pi Press, which includes The MagPi, Hello World, HackSpace magazine, and book projects. He’s a massive sci-fi bore.
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