We recently featured five amazing Raspberry Pi Pico projects you can build yourself, and now we have another cost-effective Pi project to talk about. When it comes to DIY Raspberry Pi projects, there’s a ton of inspiration out there, so it may be difficult to know where to start.
Today, we want to talk about a project from UK-based tinkerer and maker, TellinStories, otherwise known as BrainJar on MakerWorld. They’ve built a device designed for those of you who spend more time in Microsoft Teams meetings than you’d like to. The custom panel features arcade-style buttons to control all the essential shortcuts.
Microsoft Teams shortcut button
As you can see from the image below, the shortcuts cover the essentials for most Teams meeting attendees: raise/lower hand, turn on/off camera, and mute/unmute microphone. Its creator says that they “never remember the right keyboard shortcuts,” and navigating with a mouse can be cumbersome, so why not make something even a toddler can use? Note: We don’t recommend that a toddler go near this while you’re in a meeting.
The post on MakerWorld also includes instructions on how to make one yourself. Code for the microcontroller can be found on GitHub; the device simply triggers the associated hotkeys on Teams. The creator confirms that it does come with a downside: Teams needs to be the focused window in order for the buttons to function, however, they are interested in creating a workaround for that in the future. It operates via a USB connection, but we’d love to see it work wirelessly via Bluetooth.
Equipment needed:
- 3 x 24mm 5V LED arcade buttons.
- Daisy chained spade connector wire which are sold alongside the arcade buttons.
- A RP2040 Zero microcontroller board (or a Raspberry Pi Pico).
- Male USB C to Male USB A cable (or USB A to Micro USB if using an Raspberry Pi Pico).
- Small piece of stripboard or protoboard.
- Equipment to solder everything together.
Source: MakerWorld
If you want to see more interesting Raspberry Pi projects, be sure to check out this retro gaming mini PC, an office Spotify player, or even a nostalgic recreation of ’90s cable TV. There’s plenty more out there – you just need to know where to look.
