Sound Maker is a simple application which contains both client and server code that will enable remote systems to cause noise to be made on the server system via a network connection.

The goal in of the application is to get brand new students excited about the possibilities presented by programming. I hope to accomplish this by allowing them to get a remote system to respond audibly to the commands they program. Within minutes of getting python 3 installed on their system.

The code is in no way intended to be any sort of production ready code. It was built for and intended to be run in a "controlled" classroom type environment.

There is text-to-speech code that has the server system "vocalize" the text contained within the client code. The client programmer can specify both the voice to be used and the text to be vocalized.

Voices available may be dependent upon the system on which the server is running.

This list is from my OSX (Mac) system. Your list may be a little different.

'Alex', 'Alice', 'Alva', 'Amelie', 'Anna', 'Carmit', 'Damayanti', 'Daniel', 'Diego', 'Ellen', 'Fiona', 'Fred', 'Ioana', 'Joana', 'Jorge', 'Juan', 'Kanya', 'Karen', 'Kyoko', 'Laura', 'Lekha', 'Luca', 'Luciana', 'Maged', 'Mariska', 'Mei-Jia', 'Melina', 'Milena', 'Moira', 'Monica', 'Nora', 'Paulina', 'Samantha', 'Sara', 'Satu', 'Sin-ji', 'Tessa', 'Thomas', 'Ting-Ting', 'Veena', 'Victoria', 'Xander', 'Yelda', 'Yuna', 'Yuri', 'Zosia', 'Zuzana'

The client.py file contains a program built to communicate with a remote computer that is running the server (server.py). The remote computer can actually be your computer too that will be addressed later in these in these instructions.

To get things working properly you will need to open the file in some sort of text editor. At the bottom of the file you will find some text that looks like this...

if __name__ == '__main__':
    sc = TextToSpeechClient(name='Your Name Here', server_ip='127.0.0.1')

    # sc.say('Samantha', 'Knock Knock')

You will need to make a few changes and then save the file. The changes needed are...

1. put your name in the parenthesis following the name=
2. put the destination server's ip in the appropriate place in a similar manner. 127.0.0.1 is your local machine so if you are running both the server and the client you do not have to change the server ip.

Once those changes are saved go ahead and run the file and see what happens.

Open a command prompt (terminal) and type the command

python3 /path/to/your/file/client.py

Once you have ran the file the first time there are some additional lines below the one you just changed. Experiment with removing the "#" comment characters on those lines. Then save and run the file again to see what happens. Once you have done that you can experiment as you like just remember to keep things "clean".

The server.py file contains code which listens for requests made from clients. If the request contains information in a format which it can process then it will do as asked. Otherwise it will just ignore it.

The server has a few functionalities beyond the core python capabilities. That means there is a little additional setup needed to be able to run the file. We need to install a few files.

While not a requirement, I recommend using a python virtual environment. Cross platform (OS System) instructions directly from the python software foundation can be found here.

From a command prompt make sure you are in the main SoundMaker directory. If you are using a virtual environment make sure it is activated.

pip install -r requirements.txt

this command will install the modules (other peoples code) that we depend on to be able to convert the text to speech and play sounds.

After this completes you should be ready to run the server. In the same terminal you run the server.py file.

python3 server.py

you should see some things print to the terminal one of the lines should say the server is ready. If so you are ready to go start sending commands to your server with the client.py file. Remember your IP will be 127.0.0.1 or localhost will work too.

The client.py file contains a program built to communicate with a remote computer that is running the server.

To get things working properly you will need to open the file in some sort of text editor. At the bottom of the file you will find some text that looks like this...

if __name__ == '__main__':
    sc = TextToSpeechClient(name='Your Name Here', server_ip='127.0.0.1')

    # sc.say('Samantha', 'Knock Knock')

You will need to make a few changes and then save it. The changes needed are...

• put your name in the parenthesis following the name=
• put the destination server's ip in the appropriate place in a similar manner

Once those changes are saved go ahead and run the file and see what happens.

Open a command prompt (terminal) and type the command

python3 /path/to/your/file/client.py

Once you have ran the file the first time there are some additional lines below the one you just changed. Experiment with removing the # characters on those lines. Then save and run the file again to see what happens. Once you have done that you can experiment as you like just remember to keep things "clean".