Hate Twitter? OutBox Is a Raspberry Pi Device That Will Tweet for You
Social media is almost a requirement in today’s world, and people who shun it are often treated as strange. If you’re a maker who wants to…
Social media is almost a requirement in today’s world, and people who shun it are often treated as strange. If you’re a maker who wants to share your projects with others, that’s even more true. This very blog post — and most of what we feature here on the Hackster.io blog— is about a project we found through social media. So what do you do if you just dislike using social media services like Twitter? GameOfKnowing built OutBox, which is a device that automatically posts Tweets with project photos so you don’t have to.
GameOfKnowing has posted the CAD files and code for this project, so you can build it yourself if you also dislike using Twitter. The idea is simple: place something inside of OutBox and push the giant red button. OutBox will then take a photo and upload it, then post it as a tweet to your account. It lets you share your work without ever having to actually visit Twitter yourself. It’s a great way to keep people updated on your work without having to experience the toxicity of social media.
To build this, you’ll need a Raspberry Pi, a webcam, buttons, and the ability to build some kind of an enclosure. GameOfKnowing used a Raspberry Pi 3 Model A+, but any Raspberry Pi model should work. They cut their enclosure out of plywood using a laser cutter at their local hackerspace, but, again, you can do that part however you like. After setting up the hardware, you can use GameOfKnowing’s code to get it all working. OutBox works through the IFTTT (If This Then That) service, so you’ll need to plugin your credentials for that and for Twitter. Afterwards, you’ll never need to visit Twitter again!