For sending text messages I have a raspberry pi hooked up to an arcade button and an off the shelf document scanner (you can see it in the last pic). When kiddo pushes the button it takes a picture, uploads to s3 and then sends via Twilio API.
For receiving the text message I have a Lambda script that receives the text message (via Twilio webhook) and it publishes it to a Pubnub channel, the raspberry pi monitors the pubnub channel and prints via thermal printer when a new message is received.
I wanted to share a project I’ve been working on that allows my daughter to text message me without a phone or screen. She handwrites me a note and then it OCRs and sends it to me as an SMS (along with a picture of the note because 5 year old handwriting can be tricky). I text back and my response is printed for her via a thermal printer. It’s been surprisingly fun.Some features I've added:-...
A long time ago I built a cat detector to keep my cat out of the baby play area, this was before modern AI systems and I'm sure it could be so much better now. https://www.twilio.com/en-us/blog/baby-proofing-raspberry-pi...
I wanted to share a few AI related things I've made for my kids (ages 2 and 4). It's mind blowing that the tech didn't exist in a useful state a year ago and now I end up using it almost daily.1. Story creator app - https://apps.apple.com/us/app/custom-ai-stories/id1669159225 - iphone app to create and read stories. This uses the openAI API and Amazon Polly (text to speech). Icon generated by...
Also a fan of
Our babies ourselves - https://www.amazon.com/Our-Babies-Ourselves-Biology-Culture/...
Hunt, Gather, Parent - https://www.amazon.com/Our-Babies-Ourselves-Biology-Culture/...
I've written up a few projects for the Twilio blog (https://www.twilio.com/blog/author/acohen) but the majority of my projects aren't Twilio related, is there something like that (not just a personal blog) for random fun side projects? I usually make a combination of hardware and software (programmable robot for toddlers, automatic reader bee for baby, etc.)
Question inspired by the name https://tinyprojects.dev/ - is there a good community for sharing "tiny projects"? I love building small, semi-useful projects (hardware and software) and don't have a community to share with. HN seems to be more for articles and start up launches.