Sensible but silly
Allie has form with Adventure Time builds, having created a life-size BMO games console to house an OctoPrint 3D printer (see Allie’s GitHub page).
“My technical background is incredibly diverse, but when it comes to electronics I am completely self-taught,” reveals Allie. “I got interested in the Raspberry Pi because of how incredibly powerful it was (at a really good price point!) and the community behind it.”
Allie chose Raspberry Pi for this “incredibly silly and frivolous” prop project since it would “cover everything needed without me needing to spend tons of time looking for usable peripherals and testing things to make sure that they worked. It was also a chance to try Raspberry Pi 5 for the first time… [I] knew that it would demolish anything I threw at it; [I] didn’t want to worry about lag or usability”
Since Allie can’t play the bass guitar, it was time for a creative solution that involved real musical instrument hardware and a means of making it play on demand. Allie designed a guitar case to house the electronics, cannibalised small speakers for their innards, and found a way to fool Raspberry Pi 5 into thinking it was drawing the mandated 5 amps, allowing for residual power to connect up a portable battery pack and a generic touchscreen.
Time trial
Allie says the time constraint was by far the biggest challenge, since inspiration came only two months before the DragonCon cosplay event at which it was to debut. “It was a huge undertaking to get everything done in time.”
Allie designed their take on Marceline’s guitar in Fusion 360, with custom speaker enclosures for the Dayton Audio boards, electronics attachments, and detachable parts plus a sliding panel. Allie says the software side was pretty easy. “Raspberry Pi provides most useful things baked right into the OS. I only had to write some simple Python code to create the custom song buttons.”
Although some tweaks were needed – “what project would be complete with a couple of iterations?” – these were mainly related to the sliding panel that covers the touchscreen when it’s not in use and which needed to be 3D-printed and painted and still be able to slide smoothly. Allie also tried to find an alternative solution to simply playing Spotify in the Chromium browser, feeling certain there would be a Python library for it, “but alas, there was not!”
Although designing and creating the Adventure Time Self-Playing Guitar was a considerable task, Allie says the key to any successful build is breaking it into achievable bite-sized pieces. “When tackling a large project, especially if it has elements that are new to you, it’s really easy to get a bit overwhelmed and not know where to start or what to do next. Figuring out the broad strokes of a project first, then separating them into smaller and smaller pieces really helps make things feel a lot more manageable. Also, good sandpaper will save your life!” For another Adventure Time build.
