Project: punkin_pi

Scary Halloween pumpkin with lights and sound controlled by a Raspberry Pi. Refer to element14 blog posts for more info: http://www.element14.com/community/groups/raspberry-pi/blog/tags/pumpkin_pi

Written by Bonnie King and Drew Fustini. Code and design is public domain. These instructions were tested on the current Raspbian 2012-Sept-18 image from http://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads.

Install dependencies:

sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install git-core mplayer python-setuptools sudo easy_install bottle sudo easy_install RPi.GPIO

Note: If running an earlier image, then you may encounter an error on when installing the RPi.GPIO in that last step ("couldn't find Python.h"). To resolve the error, run "sudo apt-get install python-dev" and then "sudo easy_install RPi.GPIO" again. Thanks to Joel Dunn for the advice.

Install sound clip files:

pi@raspberrypi ~ $ mkdir files pi@raspberrypi ~ $ cd files pi@raspberrypi ~/files $ wget http://www.countessbloodshalloweenhorror.com/sounds/howl.wav pi@raspberrypi ~/files $ wget http://www.countessbloodshalloweenhorror.com/sounds/scream.wav pi@raspberrypi ~/files $ wget http://www.countessbloodshalloweenhorror.com/sounds/ghostgigl.wav

Any files that mplayer can play can be put into /home/pi/files such as .wav, .mp3 & .ogg.

Install & run punkin_pi:

pi@raspberrypi ~ $ git clone https://github.com/pdp7/punkin_pi.git

To run the demo server:

pi@raspberrypi ~ $ cd punkin_pi pi@raspberrypi ~/punkin_pi $ sudo python ./control.py

Audio troubleshooting:

If you want to check if punkin_pi will be able to play a particular file in /home/pi/files, then try to play it with mplayer:

mplayer /home/pi/files/howl.wav

Sometimes the sound system may become unstable and produce errors. Restarting ALSA should resolve this:

/etc/init.d/alsa-utils restart

If your speakers lack a volume control, then the ALSA mixer can be used:

alsamixer