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Randomrex - The Tweeting Picture Frame

Made by 8BitsAndAByte / Animals

About the project

A tweeting picture frame made by Rex, the floofiest member of 8 Bits and a Byte

Project info

Difficulty: Easy

Platforms: Adafruit, Raspberry Pi, Twitter

Estimated time: 1 day

License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike CC BY-SA version 4.0 or later (CC BY-SA 4+)

Items used in this project

Hardware components

	HDMI 7 800x480 Display Backpack - With Touchscreen	x 1
	Raspberry Pi 3 Model B	x 1

Software apps and online services

	Dremel 4300
	Twitter

Hand tools and fabrication machines

	3D printer	x 1
	Glue gun	x 1

Story

Overview

Below a quick overview of the content.

Introduction and showcase video
Picture frame
Sticks
Twitter account
Photos
Logic
End result

Introduction & showcase video

To spread some love and happiness, Rex decided to build a tweeting picture frame to brighten up Twitter with his best pictures.

Picture frame

At first he printed one big house, but left no space for a Pi or any wiring. Instead of one big print, plan "Waggling Tail" was to use six frames and glue them together. The files with all the panels are attached.

Sticks

With the basic frame in place, the next step was to hot glue some Popsicle sticks on the outside. Makes it look nice and professional.

Twitter

In order to Tweet you need two things, a Twitter account and developer access. Information about both here. Extra thanks to Raspberry Pi for this great tutorial!

Pictures

To avoid too much repetition, collecting a lot of pictures is important. Luckily we took a lot, and will keep adding new ones as we go. Just make sure they are under 5MB each, otherwise Twitter gets grumpy.

Logic

The code has to do two things:

Every hour randomly select a picture from the set, and display it on the screen
Once a day, at 10:00 AM, pick a random picture and Tweet it

For the full code, check the attachment "Code"

End Result

The picture frame standing on makeshift stands

You can find his Twitter account here

CAD, enclosures and custom parts

Code

code

# Our imports
from twython import Twython
from random import randint
import os, os.path
import time
import schedule
import requests
import pygame

# Enter your Twitter keyes here
consumer_key        = 'XXX'
consumer_secret     = 'XXX'
access_token        = 'XXX'
access_token_secret = 'XX'

# Start Pygame with the right screen dimensions
pygame.init()
WIDTH = 800
HEIGHT = 480
windowSurface = pygame.display.set_mode((WIDTH, HEIGHT), 0, 32)

# Make it fullscreen
pygame.display.toggle_fullscreen()

# Hide the cursor
pygame.mouse.set_cursor((8,8),(0,0),(0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0),(0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0))

# Create our twitter object with the keys
twitter = Twython(
    consumer_key,
    consumer_secret,
    access_token,
    access_token_secret
)

# Send out a tweet
def tweet():

    # Message to be tweeted
    message = "Picture of the day! This is number {0} out of {1}. Have a great day!"

    # Collect all the names of the images in out folder and the amount
    names = [name for name in os.listdir('/home/pi/Desktop/RandomRex/Photos/')]
    total = len([name for name in os.listdir('/home/pi/Desktop/RandomRex/Photos/')])

    # Generate a random number, -1 because our index start at 0
    random = randint(0, total-1)
    print(random)

    # Fetch the name belonging to this random number
    name = '/home/pi/Desktop/RandomRex/Photos/'+names[random]
    print(name)

    # Open the image
    image = open(name, 'rb')

    # Add the stats, picture number and total amount of pictures to our tweet text
    message = message.format(str(random+1),str(total+1))
    print(message)
    print("------")

    # Upload the image to twitter and store it's id for later use
    response = twitter.upload_media(media=image)
    media_id = [response['media_id']]

    # Send our tweet with the message and media id
    twitter.update_status(status=message, media_ids=media_id)

# Change the picture on the screen
def changePicture():

    # Collect all the names of the images in out folder and the amount
    names = [name for name in os.listdir("/home/pi/Desktop/RandomRex/Photos/")]
    total = len([name for name in os.listdir('/home/pi/Desktop/RandomRex/Photos/')])

    # Generate a random number, -1 because our index start at 0
    random = randint(0, total - 1)
    print(random)
    name = '/home/pi/Desktop/RandomRex/Photos/' + names[random]
    print(name)

    # Open the image with PyGame and scale it to fit on our screen
    img = pygame.image.load(name)
    img = pygame.transform.scale(img, (WIDTH, HEIGHT))

    # Show the image!
    windowSurface.blit(img, (0, 0))  # Replace (0, 0) with desired coordinates
    pygame.display.flip()

# Set the pictur when script started
changePicture()

# Change image on the screen very hour
schedule.every().hour.do(changePicture)

# Tweet everyday dat 10 AM
schedule.every().day.at("10:00").do(tweet)

# To keep our script running
while True:

    # Check the pending scheduled tasks
    schedule.run_pending()

    # if escape is pressed we stop, kind of mercy kill
    for event in pygame.event.get():
        if event.type == pygame.KEYDOWN:
            if event.key == pygame.K_ESCAPE:
                pygame.quit()

Credits

8BitsAndAByte

We’re Dane & Nicole, two makers that create tremendously terrible tech, which we happily share with you on our channel! https://www.youtube.com/c/8bitsandabyte

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