Harry Potter and the Real-Life Daily Prophet
Most people would visit The Wizarding World of Harry Potter and bring back a few souvenirs to adorn their shelves. But for Piet Rullens Jr, with a video from his trip to hand, that simply wasn’t enough.
Taking to Photoshop, Piet designed a copy of the Daily Prophet, the newspaper from the original book and film series, and included an article about his trip to the Harry Potter theme park.
Within the design I marked an area with the exact size of the Raspberry Pi screen. Next, I plotted the poster on normal paper at 100%, so the marked area still matched the Raspberry Pi screen.
From there, Piet used the design to mark the backing board of a poster frame, allowing him to cut out a hole the size of the 7″ display.
The display sits firmly between the lip of the screen and the glass of the frame, secured to the back of the board alongside a Raspberry Pi 3.
As the wall behind the poster backs onto a cupboard, Piet was able to drill a small hole for the USB power lead, leaving no unsightly wiring on display after the frame was hung.
As for the software?
The software is very simple: I use a small Python script and an Adafruit IR distance sensor to detect if somebody is approaching the poster. If that’s the case, with a simple command I turn on the Raspberry Pi screen and start a H264 movie using Omxplayer. The movie will play for 5 minutes and then I stop the movie and turn off the screen, so it’s not playing 24/7; this saves energy and screen lifetime.
We love this project, in that ‘Oh it’s amazing, but why didn’t I think of this first?’ way that every good maker feels when they see something awesome.
28 comments
Michael Horne
I LOVE this. I want one :-)
Alex Bate
Me too! And this might sound ridiculous but I’m so in love with the clean cut of the display window. It’s so straight and perfect. A very tight, impressive build. Can’t fault it.
K Hoadley
Alas there’s a glaring error you can’t unspot when you’ve seen … Piet and Linda *where* spotted
Alex Bate
I spotted it. But as English isn’t Piet’s first language, I was happy to let it slide.
Piet Rullens
:) Thanks for the hint, I will correct it on the reprint.
Colin Deady
Fantastic! :)
Brandan
This is great! I would love to make one.
Jim
Awesome! What video does it play? Is it a generic news story, or does it update daily? It would be incredibly awesome if it used some kind of facial recognition to play different videos based on the person.
Liz Upton
There’s absolutely no reason you couldn’t set up such a build to do either of those things. https://learn.adafruit.com/raspberry-pi-face-recognition-treasure-box/overview is a nice OpenCV tutorial if you’re new to facial recognition.
Alex Bate
It plays a video they recorded while visiting the theme park, Jim.
Mike Hooper
Brilliant :)
Chas
Brilliant. I love reading Harry Potter :) :)
Trevor Mack
Would love to do one of these myself, my wife loves Harry Potter and our nursery theme is books of which we have quotes from HP all over the walls. This would complete that theme so well!
Piet you going to share more details on the build / software?
Piet Rullens
No problem, when I’m done with the software I will publish the code.
Ella
Where will you publish the code? This is so cool, i’m desperate to make it!
Andy
“Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn.”?
Oh – sorry – wrong HP
Mike
Best comment :D
fos
What fun! Thank you.
Michael Horne
Had a good night’s sleep since seeing this. I still want one :-)
Ciprian Ciprian
I’m thinking of doing this for some kids at the local “Children’s Palace”, as it is called, a free hobby course. Is there a way getting the “how to” on this project? Thanks!
totof
Very good project and simple code … but where is the code please ?
Arthur
Where can you find the code?
Raspberry Pi Staff Janina Ander
This MagPi article describes the Python script the Pi runs:
https://www.raspberrypi.org/magpi/harry-potter-daily-prophet/
You can find Piet, the maker, on Twitter if you want to ask him for his code.
totof
Yes , good article but no code !
Arith
Where can I buy one? :D
Alex Bate
You’ll have to make your own if you want one. This is a one-of-a-kind piece.
Corey Pope
Where can I find the poster you used to make one for my wedding anniversary
Alex Bate
He designed the whole poster himself using the Adobe Suite. You can probably find some Daily Prophet posters online if you have a look.