Tired of saying goodbye? Show people how you really feel with 8 Bits and a Byte‘s Goodbye Machine.

Spoiler alert: no one wants to be at the receiving end of the red button.

Not all amazing projects require line upon line of code, hour upon hour of build time, or sheer masses of components. Sometimes even the simplest of buttons will do, as Carrie Anne explains in issue 1 of Hello World.

Goodbye to you

With their Goodbye Machine, Brussels-based YouTube makers 8 Bits and a Byte found a simple, entertaining solution to their “inability to say goodbye” using two servos, two buttons, a Raspberry Pi 3, and some lollipop sticks. Oh, and British musical royalty, James Blunt and Lily Allen.

When the positive green button is pressed, a hand appears, waving goodbye to the dulcet tones of James Blunt singing Goodbye My Lover. So darling.

However, press the negative red button and your departing acquaintance will be flipped the bird, as Lily Allen sings F*ck You.

It’s a very simple network of wires and code. Each button is given a task and when pressed, the task is completed. Anyone can learn this easy set of code, and create incredible projects as a result. And no, not all projects have to be so insulting… but we’re a little sadistic here at Pi Towers, and this sort of humour fits us perfectly.

For more information on building your own Goodbye Machine, visit the hackster.io project page.

Button it!

If you’d like to learn more about using buttons in digital making projects, these free resources from our projects site should get you started:

GPIO music box – wire up buttons to your Raspberry Pi’s GPIO pins and then use them to play sounds with a simple Python application.

Whoopi cushion – make a whoopee cushion powered by a Raspberry Pi.

Push button stop motion – make a stop-motion animation using a Raspberry Pi and a Camera Module to take pictures, controlled by a push-button.

Goodbye, so long, farewell

Since watching the video above for the first time, I’ve been unable to get Goodbye My Lover out of my head. If, like me, you’re suffering from a James Blunt earworm, here are some other goodbye-themed songs to listen to: