A few months ago the Raspberry Pi magazine The MagPi gave away a piece of hardware, the Google AIY voice control kit. Subscribers all received one, but as always the eBay scalpers cleaned up all the in-store copies and very few lucky enthusiasts scored a kit of their own.
Among these frustrated Pi owners was [Circuitbeard], who decided instead to make his own kit. And since a cardboard case lacked style, he decided to do so in the shell of a 1980s Tomy Mr. Money toy novelty bank. Into it went a Raspberry Pi Zero W and an audio pHat, with a servo to operate the head and a microswitch connected to the toy’s arm as a trigger.
The Python code to run everything is all included in the write-up, and he’s posted a video of the device in operation which we’ve placed below the break.
We’ve covered several Google AIY projects since it was released, including one in a British telephone, and one in an intercom. Meanwhile, we’ve also shown you another feature on how to build the AIY without the kit.
servo noise is killing this…
Yes, agreed it will get irritating really fast, but always fun to have retro toys.
a/k/a “Roby the Banker” sold by Radio Shack in the late ’80’s.
Yes many Tomy toys were sold by RadioShack with their own names. A majority of RadioShack products were designed and manufactured by someone else and rebranded RadioShack.
I have one of those. It still eats quarters, doing the whole show and everything, even though the batteries haven’t been replaced in so long that they simply can’t be intact any longer… no, really, it’s been /at least/ a decade. The old toy is at the top of an otherwise-forgotten pile of crap in a room I don’t go into very often… at some point I suspect I’m going to have to bravely open the battery door and marvel at the horrors within, but that day is not today.