The motivation for this project started when I observed my brother (who is autistic) getting bored at home during lockdown. My brother (like many of us) has a specific set of activities that he enjoys doing in his spare time.

The difference is, unlike “normal” people he is unable to decide which activity to do. If not prompted by other family members, he will resort to watching Netflix/Amazon prime on his iPad all day (don’t we all though :p). Thus, I decided to use a Raspberry Pi that I had lying around at home to make a device that would prompt him to do activities whenever board.

The Idea

The first requirement for the device was that it had to be simple, no complex interfaces or menus. Further, the activity needed to be generated and suggested in a clear manner. The best way for this seemed to be through sound, instead of just printing the activity on a screen which my brother may not look at. So, including a speaker with the raspberry Pi seemed good enough, and an old iPod speaker i had lying around was a perfect fit. The remaining thing to add was a user input, i.e. something that will trigger the device to generate a random activity. For this I used a simple switch that when pressed generates an activity. I also had a small spare LED screen that I decided to include in the device, to display simple messages. Shown below are some pictures of the device, which I fitted in a box and made all the connections with some simple soldering.

The Code

Currenty, I have setup a excel sheet where the list of activities can be added. The code simply chooses one of the tasks from the list randomly. Then using an opensource python library the activity is read out from the list, in a somewhat configurable manner. I have been recently using the device to generate random episodes from my favourite TV show “The Office” for me to rewatch when bored:p.