computersciencehouse/harold

System to play custom elevator waiting music for members of CSH.

HAROLD

Computer Science House - Rochester Institute of Technology

A Python rewrite of the CSH house system HAROLD (Heralding Arrivals Rather Obnoxiously Loud Device), which is currently being run on a Raspberry Pi B+. HAROLD receives the iButton input from the user and then plays either a set song or random song from a playlist defined by the user for thirty seconds over the speakers in the elevator lobby. HAROLD's purpose is to provide entertainment while either waiting for an elevator or a member's arrival on-floor.

To run Harold run the file using the following command.

$ python Harold/main.py

Alternatively, (as configured on the actual machine) you can add Harold to init.d and instead run:

$ service harold (start|stop)

Make sure the user running the script has permissions to read from /dev/ or run the script as root.

harold's Issues

Suggestion: Have a ding play the moment an iButton is pressed

Instant feedback 🎆

Random Song Error

Users with just a Harold directory and no song cause Harold to try to play the name of a predefined random song but from the user's home dir. (ex. /users/u22/mbillow/harold/boomclap.mp3)

This obviously causes mplayer to try and play a file that doesn't exist.

The single from my new indie band won't play

"; echo "stay classy, san diego"; echo "quit
.mp3

mplayer just quits when it tries to play it.

Obviously I can't test this, but it does this on my machine when I copy over the important bits of your code that deal with this part.

Otherwise pretty cool.

Better playlist randomization

Yesterday I used Harold 6 times and it played the same song 5/6 times. I know I put up 6-7 songs or so in my Harold directory. I noticed you guys use Python's random choice function but I was thinking there might be a better approach to this problem. For instance we could (if possible) store/create an actual playlist file so we can guarantee non-repeats. Another (simpler) approach might be just to replace the choice call with a shuffle call and then pick the first index in the shuffled list.

Missing LICENSE?

First, the standard disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, and this does not constitute legal or financial advice.

Generally, IMHO, it is a good idea to use FSF or OSI Approved Licenses (which can be found here https://www.gnu.org/licenses/licenses.html and here http://opensource.org/licenses/category)

The Free Software Foundation has a useful guide for choosing a license: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-recommendations.html

I often reference the Software Freedom Law Center's Legal Primer for both practical and academic purposes (highly recommended): https://www.softwarefreedom.org/resources/2008/foss-primer.html#x1-60002.2

https://tldrlegal.com/ is quite a useful resource for comparing the various FOSS licenses out there once you have some context

To get ahold of actual lawyers/advisors who help FOSS projects, you can reach out to the FSF, SFLC, and OSI at:
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]

Hope this helps, and happy hacking!