technogeeks ahoy!

[kaydeefalls]

First things first: my new!roommate made me and our other!roommate Easter baskets filled with chocolatey goodness. Reason #178649 why new!roommate is a bajillion times better than the psychotic ex!roommate.

Anyway. I need technological assistance on a prank. My parents have installed this TV in their living room that spends much of its time cunningly disguised as a granite countertop, until you click the remote and it slowly and majestically emerges. My parents are VERY proud of their stealth!TV. It's a crucial part of the apartment tour for new guests. And I badly need to somehow rig it up so that the Imperial March plays as the TV rises. Seriously, I spent a good chunk of time (okay, like five minutes) today examining the mechanism and the construction of the thing, and I definitely am willing to sacrifice my computer speakers for this purpose. But I don't know WHAT to play the music itself on (to connect to the speakers), and, crucially, HOW to rig it to play only when the TV does its emerging thing.

Right now, I can think of two possibilities -- either I Rube Goldberg the shit out of it so that the physical motion of the TV trips a switch somehow, or I do...something to figure out the radio frequency of the remote that controls the TV rise/fall and have that somehow trigger the audio. But I don't actually know how to DO either of those things. Are there any technology geeks out there who can advise me on this crucially important matter?

I don't think you understand how determined I am to make this happen. It would be the most glorious prank EVER. My parents would lose their shit. But HOW?

Comments

[troisroyaumes]

Okay, that indeed would be the most glorious prank ever. I think Arduino is the sort of thing designed for this? Send a wireless signal to an iPod once the switch flips/IR signal is received.

[kaydeefalls]

I googled Arduino, and I'm trying to read up on it, but honestly I still don't understand how I'd have to set it up to make that work, or what software/hardware I'd need for it. Urg, I'm okay learning software, but the physical side of it is well beyond my understanding. :/ Thanks for the suggestion, though, maybe it will make sense if I keep staring at the website.

[rabid_bookwyrm]

Basically, an Arduino is a small, programmable board, to which you can attach various peripherals. So anything you might want to program it to do, you probably can. As with many things, you'd want to start with some basic tutorials that would just walk through the process of making the Arduino do something, and then move on to making it do what you actually want.

For example, my housemate used one to make a shot timer, for firearms competition practice.

[rabid_bookwyrm]

Er, to clarify further: there's a free IDE program that lets you write code for the Arduino. The coding language is like C or Java; Tim says it's very easy to learn and use.