Code-Along: Chatbot

In this activity, create a simple chatbot that can respond to some basic messages.

Click here to view the Repl project. Fork the project to begin.

Part One: Prompt For Message

The first thing to do is ask the user to input a message. This is possible by creating a new variable, and using input.

1. Open the main.py file for editing
2. Create a new variable named message
3. Set the message variable to an input function call
4. Make the text for the prompt say "Please enter a message: "

The added Python code should look something like this:

message = input("Please enter a message: ")

Run the code, and verify that a prompt appears asking for a message. Nothing should happen when entering a message yet though!

Part Two: Responding to the Message

Next, the chatbot should respond to certain messages the user enters. This is where if statements come in: the response should be different depending on the message.

To start, have the chatbot respond to a message of "Hi" from the user.

1. Open the main.py file for editing
2. Make a new line at the bottom of the file
3. There, create an if statement with the if keyword
4. For the if condition, check if the user said "Hi"
   • Use message variable, ==, and "Hi" to compare
5. Make a new line, and make sure it is indented
6. There, display a message saying "Greetings, human"
   • Use print("Greetings, human")

The added Python code should look something like this:

if message == "Hi":
  print("Greetings, human")

Run the code. Enter "Hi" as the message, and verify that the proper response appears! If any other message is entered, no response should appear.

Part Three: More Responses

The chatbot is functional, but it is not very powerful yet. It needs to be able to respond to some more messages! Add a couple more responses using if statements.

These if statements will look very similar to the previous if statement. For each of the responses, follow these steps:

1. Have the main.py file open for editing
2. Make a new line at the bottom of the file
3. Add an if keyword
4. For the condition after the if, check if message == the given message
5. In the body (indented on the next line), add the print with the response

The added Python code should look something like this:

if message == "I love you":
  print("Does not compute")

if message == "Can I have a hug?":
  print("INITIATING HUG PROTOCOL 🤗")

Run the code, try out each of the messages. Make sure to enter them exactly right, with proper punctuation/capitalization/etc. Each message should produce the correct response!

Final Code

By the end of the activity, the code should look something like this:

print("Welcome to the chat 🤖")
print()

message = input("Please enter a message: ")

if message == "Hi":
  print("Greetings, human")

if message == "I love you":
  print("Does not compute")

if message == "Can I have a hug?":
  print("INITIATING HUG PROTOCOL 🤗")

Next Steps

After the basic code-along activity has been completed, work on some of these additional features.

Even More Responses

There is always room for more responses to be added to the chatbot! Come up with some original ones, or use this list as a basis. Each new response should use a similar if statement structure:

if message == "MESSAGE":
  print("RESPONSE")

Add several responses to make the chatbot more lifelike.