Simpsons Duff Can Episode Shuffler

The basis for this clever project was originally someone else’s idea. I just made one of my own and put it in a nifty box. Pics put this around June/July of 2016.

The general idea is you take a Raspberry Pi computer, throw some video files on the SD card, add a button, and a little script that picks an episode file at random and plays it.

The circuit is very simple, just a 10k resistor and a button.

And the code is pretty simple, too:
/home/pi/RandomSimpsons.py

#!/usr/bin/python



import RPi.GPIO as GPIO
import time
import os
import random

buttonPin = 17

directory = "/home/pi/simpsons/"

GPIO.setmode(GPIO.BCM)
GPIO.setup(buttonPin, GPIO.IN)

def playEpisode():
        episode = random.choice(os.listdir(directory))
        cmd = "nohup omxplayer -b -o hdmi "+"'"+directory+episode+"' &"
        os.system('killall omxplayer.bin')
        os.system(cmd)
try:
        GPIO.wait_for_edge(buttonPin, GPIO.FALLING)
        playEpisode()
        os.system('sudo python /home/pi/RandomSimpsons.py') #point this to the location of this file

except KeyboardInterrupt: 

    GPIO.cleanup()

I used the May 2016 Jessie Light image. Ran apt-get update & apt-get upgrade, think I also had to install omxplayer “apt-get install omxplayer”

Copy show episodes to the /home/pi/simpsons/ folder – no subfolders, video files only

And add a line to crontab to run the script at startup: “crontab -e” then type: “@reboot /home/pi/RandomSimpsons.py”

Found this Duff Can box pattern on the net (artists page here)

Soldered up a big red button & resistor for testing… pay no attention to that ugly glob of hot glue, this is precision craftsmanship right here 🙂

Used spray glue to stick the pattern to 1/8 plywood (Holy crap this stuff takes forever and makes a horrible sticky mess!!!)

Cutout & Mitered corners, Gorilla glue

Big red button has been replaced with a smaller switch. Will cover with a “pop top” button cover…

Didn’t like the matte finish of the Duff graphics (and they got a bit chewed up during assembly…), so I made up another set, laminated, and superglued to the box.