So yesterday I got this wild idea stuck in my head: I wanted to build a little something I’m calling the motown express. Basically, a jukebox that plays nothing but those smooth, classic Motown hits, right? Figured it’d be perfect for my weekend garage hangout.
Getting the Guts Together
First thing I did was rummage through my tech junk pile. Found an old Raspberry Pi gathering dust behind a box of Christmas lights – score! Hooked it up to my laptop to see if it still worked. Took forever to boot up, and the fan sounded like a dying hair dryer, but hey, it powered on. Good enough for now.
Next hunt: speakers. Grabbed the little USB ones from my kid’s old computer. Plugged ’em into the Pi. Hit play on a test song file… nothing. Dead silent. Awesome. Spent like an hour messing with audio settings, swearing under my breath, before I realized the volume slider was set to zero. Felt pretty dumb after that one.
Making the Music Box
Okay, sound works. Now, how do I actually pick the songs? I don’t want to plug in a keyboard every time. Had a flashback to those old-school jukeboxes with the big buttons. Dug deeper into the junk pile and found a dusty USB number pad thingy I bought years ago for some project I forgot.
Here’s what I did:
- Connected the number pad to the Raspberry Pi.
- Wrote a super simple Python script using pygame. Basically, hitting ‘1’ would play Smokey Robinson, ‘2’ would play Diana Ross… you get the idea.
- Put all my Motown MP3s in one folder and named them *3, *3… real clever, right?
It was ugly. Typing the command in the terminal to start the script felt wrong. Needed a better front end.
Facing the Ugly Truth
Looked at the Pi hooked to the speakers with wires everywhere. Felt cheap. Needed a box! Found an old wooden cigar box in the shed. Perfect size.
Grabbed my drill (carefully!):
- Drilled holes for the Pi’s power cable and HDMI port (just in case).
- Cut a big hole in the front for the number pad to stick out.
- Made little slits on the sides for the speaker wires.
Looked pretty rough, not gonna lie. Sanded down the splinters. Slapped on some dark blue paint I had lying around. While it dried, I printed out a little paper sign that said “MOTOWN EXPRESS” and glued it on the top. Classy.
Does It Actually Jam?
Plugged everything back in. Pi in the box. Number pad poking out the front. Speakers wired up. Took a deep breath. Plugged it into the wall.
Green light on the Pi. Good sign. Pressed ‘1’ on the number pad.
Bam! Stevie Wonder starts singing right on cue. Pressed ‘2’ – Marvin Gaye kicks in without missing a beat. Felt like a genius for five whole minutes.
But guess what? The little Pi got hotter than a Motown stage light after like 3 songs. Fan’s still screaming. My cigar box ain’t exactly got airflow. Had to cut an emergency hole in the back with the drill. Looks janky, but hey, it works. Thing runs cooler now. Mostly.
Living With My Frankenstein Jukebox
Used it all afternoon Saturday. Music blaring in the garage while I tinkered with the car. Wife came out, laughed, but tapped her foot to The Temptations. Success.
It ain’t pretty inside or out. The Python script feels like it’s held together with duct tape and hope. That fan noise is annoying as heck. But you know what? Hearing “Dancing in the Street” blast out of that beat-up cigar box hooked up to a junk Pi? Worth every minute of fussing. It’s dumb, messy, and perfectly mine. Classic motown express.