The holidays are long over, but we’re still getting a smattering of holiday themed hacks. For this one, the [Han’s] family decided to make a Christmas bauble that relays their tweets to them!
They call it the Tweetbal which is Dutch for — well — Tweetball! Whenever someone tweets with the hashtag #tweetbal it gets displayed on the 20×4 serial LCD display. They’re using an Arduino Uno with an RN-XV WiFly module to receive and send the tweets to the display. A large white plastic ornament ball houses it all secured very firmly with our favorite adhesion method — duct tape. It’s a pretty simple project, but a great holiday hack if we do say so ourselves — plus it could be easily used for non-holiday purposes — like a desktop trinket twitter feed!
Stick around after the break to see its tweeting capabilities in action.
If that’s a bit too techy for your Christmas tree, why not make some fancy glowing acrylic ornaments instead? They’re both bright and shiny!
[Thanks Hans!]
This is a great post, but I disagree that the holidays are “long over” – our Christmas tree is still up, and I can’t be the only one! (on that note, I find it bizarre that the huge buildup to Christmas in America goes on for more than a month, but the holiday is pushed aside the moment it’s over to make room for clearance sales and useless top-10 lists!)
So true. I am an Anglican. Christmas does not start until Evening of 24th and does not end until Jan 6 on Epiphany. The problem is both Evangelical and secular Americans confuse Advent with Christmas.
I will take my tree down this weekend.
I agree wholeheartedly! I grew up Episcopalian, though I’m now in a non-liturgical church. I intend to observe Advent next year, lighting the wreath with my kids, something I haven’t done in many years. Maybe someone will post an LED Advent wreath or something like that :)
I like it but am curious as to why they didn’t find a way to power it off a light string like those Hallmark Christmas ornaments.