Get a Daily Dose of /r/Showerthoughts with This Arduino Display

The /r/showerthoughts subreddit is a community full of deep thinkers. It’s a place where you can go to ponder life’s most important philosophical questions, like “why do we drive on the parkway, but park on the driveway?” But sometimes you can’t get to Reddit, or maybe you work in one of those silly offices that blocks it. In that case, Saadli’s 3D-printable Arduino-based /r/showerthoughts display is for you.

The /r/showerthoughts subreddit sticks to a simple format of short text headlines — no images, videos, or long walls of text are necessary. That means that posts can easily be displayed on a small LCD screen. To start this build, you’ll first need to download those posts in a format that’s readable by the Arduino. Luckily, Saadli’s wife programmed a handy tool to do just that. Simply choose how many posts you want to download and how they’re sorted, and you’re given the correct file. It looks like they may add support for other subreddits in the future, but for now it’s just /r/showerthoughts.

After that, simply program an Arduino Pro Mini with the provided code. Wire that up to a 3.3V voltage regulator, an ILI9341 TFT LCD screen that has a built-in SD card reader, and a normally-open momentary button. Then 3D print the provided enclosure and put it all together. Load up the SD card with the formatted /r/showerthoughts file, and when you turn it on it should be all ready to go. Just push the button, and you’ll get a new thought-provoking life question or statement.