Man Dupont has created an interactive phone prop utilizing our favourite microcontroller, the Raspberry Pi RP2040. In accordance with Dupont, he was commissioned to create this prop for the Stranger Issues season 4 premiere occasion, however that the sales space it as to be featured in wasn’t use.
(It’s additionally price noting that past a couple of non-public emails, Dupnot did not present any verification that he was truly commissioned by the staff for this undertaking, however we nonetheless suppose this can be a cool undertaking price showcasing.)
Dupont explains the classic cellphone was deliberate to be positioned in a sales space resembling a Eighties pizza store. What seems like an unassuming prop would sometimes ring. When company decide up the cellphone, they’d hear random sound bites from the present, scary sound results and even random pizza orders. Lifting the cellphone off the hook returns a dial tone sound, the buttons work with an audible sound for every keypress and the speaker will returns a disconnected sound as soon as a quantity has been dialed.
In the event you haven’t heard of Dupont earlier than, it’s best to positively take a look at his undertaking historical past. Dupont is a software program developer and audio engineer with loads of expertise in microelectronics. You’ll find extra of his work on Hackaday in addition to movies of his work in motion over at his official YouTube channel.
The undertaking is designed to make use of a classic ITT cellphone and as a lot of the unique {hardware} as doable which incorporates the dial pad, receiver and hook. The audio logic is dealt with utilizing a Sparkfun RP2040 Factor Plus together with an Adafruit UDA1334A breakout. Sound bites are performed by the earpiece within the receiver whereas a 3W speaker is used for the ring impact.
The software program was designed from scratch by Dupont utilizing CircuitPython—which not too long ago hit a milestone with official help out there on over 300 boards. There are three fundamental audio banks it pulls sounds from together with the ring impact, sound bites for the earpiece and varied tones that replicate the traditional cellphone interface.
If you wish to recreate this Raspberry Pi undertaking or simply get a more in-depth take a look at the way it all goes collectively, take a look at the complete undertaking thread over at Hackaday and watch the undertaking video shared to YouTube to see it in motion. We even have an superior Stranger Issues Christmas Lights undertaking tutorial designed by Ryder Damen to go with the classic cellphone designed by Dupont.