When [Chris Campbell]’s children wanted to play an album in the background over dinner, switching the outputs on his family’s Sonos sound system was perhaps too involved for their budding mastery of technology. This got him thinking about using kid-friendly inputs so they could explore his music collection. Blending QR codes, some LEGO, and a bit of arts and crafts, a kid-friendly QR code reader media controller comes out!
Working with a Raspberry Pi 3 Model B and a cheap camera, [Campbell] whipped up some code to handle producing and reading the QR codes — though he’s running the media server on another computer to maintain fast response times. Once [Campbell] had his QR codes, he printed them out and got his kids involved in cutting and gluing the double-sided cards. Additional cards access different functions — starting a playlist queue, switching output channels, and full album playback, among others. Cue spontaneous dance-parties!
Seeing his kids flip through the QR cards, [Campbell] is left to muse on a childhood spent browsing records, and how his children are able to share in that experience — albeit in a properly 21st century fashion.
I want that. Not only for my son, but for myself as well. Because, with a system like that i could have physical markers not only for the albums i have on CD but for those i (legally) downloaded as well. And internet radio stations, podcasts, playlists,… you name it.
Add a screen and you get movies and series with the same comfort, too.
A similar project based on RFID, esp8266 and kodi https://github.com/mehdilauters/kodi-rfid , less light sensitive :)
Cool! And yeah, we discovered the importance of having enough light on hand during the kids’ first dance party using the project in a darkened room :) My son cobbled together a little flashlight rig as a quick fix; longer term I was thinking about adding a LEGO light brick. RFID definitely wins in that kind of environment! Thanks for sharing.
I like this. This is cool.
And LEGO!
I MUST do this. What a great idea.
Now a device to change the cards, so you can make a playlist
Since the card is just a pointer it can point to any playlist you want, although I can see the appeal of a mechanical changer. :)
Nice project!
I made a similar jukebox with RFID card albums : http://techenvy.com/hack/diy-rfid-music-box-with-raspberry-pi
The idea of using an external media player to reduce playback delay is a good one I should probably try to integrate, although I do like the all in one fits-in-a-cigar-box design I currently have. Chris wins for lego integration!
That’s awesome! My original plan was to use RFID but I’m a massive cheapskate :) Once I started thinking about the costs of purchasing more and more tags I got cold feet and went with QR instead. Would be nice to make my `qrplay` script support both approaches (RFID and/or QR); RFID would certainly be nicer in a darkened room.
The external server has been nice for certain things (latency is a big one, but also for ease/speed of text-to-speech generation) but sometimes I forget to run the server (and it’s also overly complicated for most things). I’d like to make that part optional so that you can have everything running on one RPi; your all-in-one-box approach has encouraged me to pursue that! Thanks for posting!
The text to speech, low latency and cheap materials for playback cards is awesome. I’m going to look at integrating some of your stuff into my rig. Thanks for sharing!
what’s the latency like on the qr reader? I have a similar setup but with everything running on the pi. mpd and mpc have almost no latency. The thing that takes the time is reading the qr code. It takes about 1 second.
https://github.com/mattvenn/qr-music-player
I put together a similar project using RFID cards instead of QR codes: http://techenvy.com/hack/diy-rfid-music-box-with-raspberry-pi
Using an external media player to reduce playback delays is a good idea and I love the incorporation of lego in this one!
Holy crap that is _amazing_! (And your kids have extraordinary taste in music, too…)
Thanks for the encouragement! And yeah, I’m enjoying this brief window in time where the kids’ music tastes align pretty well with that of their parents; that certainly won’t last.
Cool – funnily enough I had the opportunity to repair an early 80’s juke box last week . I had never pulled one apart before, the intricacies of the mechanics to make it all happen are a testament to some very creative engineering
Ages of the kids us not stated. Must be v young.