Student turns Raspberry Pi into epic Simpsons episode shuffler

Imagine having all 600 odd episodes of the Simpsons ready to go at the touch of a button. You'd pretty much never be bored again, would you?

Well, Irish PhD student and developer Stephen Coyle has made the dream into a glorious reality — by adapting a Raspberry Pi Zero into a gadget that randomly generates episodes.

"I’m a big Simpsons fan, and since I love all of the earlier seasons it’s always tough to choose which episode to watch, especially in a group," Coyle told Mashable. "The natural solution was to have something else choose for me!"

The gadget only took Coyle a few hours to make.

"I had a PhD deadline last Monday, so once that was out of the way I spent afternoon doing it to unwind," he said. "Most of the time was actually spent converting the episodes to get them all to fit onto the memory card!

"It’s not too hard to make, in fact it’s a great beginner electronics project. Programming and doing basic electronics is really easy with the Raspberry Pi (I’d really encourage anyone to get one and try it out!). I’ve put the code that makes it work on my website for anyone to use, so as long as you can connect up a button you’re all set."

Coyle combined a large yellow button with a Rasberry Pi Zero to make his episode generator.

IMAGE: STEPHEN COYLE

Here's what the finished device looks like.

IMAGE: STEPHEN COYLE

Coyle told us he's been into electronics for a long time, and has recently developed an interest for coding. He's currently working on some projects that will incorporate both.

"My latest gadget in progress is a wireless remote control for my camera using Arduinos," he said. "I’ve also got a music-based puzzle game that I’ll be releasing on the App Store hopefully in a few weeks!"