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If you’re planning a party and want to take your celebration to the next level, you may want to add a Raspberry Pi to your shopping list. This project, created by maker Hazal Mestci, uses a Raspberry Pi to operate a tiny confetti cannon. Just a little Pi is all it takes to put the power of spontaneous festivity at the tips of your fingers.
Mestci shows off the creation in a tutorial that shows how you can make this project at home. It mostly consists of a small confetti popper along with a motor system rigged to trigger the confetti’s release. This is operated by a button connected to the Raspberry Pi but you could use anything to trigger the confetti.
This versatility is part of what makes the project so fun. You could choose from a wide variety of sensors to activate the popper—anything from a motion sensor to a reed switch to create the ultimate surprise. You could even throw in additional components like LEDs that flash or speakers that output music when the confetti cannon goes off.
The confetti bot is operated by a Raspberry Pi 3 B+. It’s connected to a button that’s used for input to trigger the confetti cannon. The confetti is launched from the container by means of a motor which the Pi controls using an L298N motor driver. The end product is totally portable thanks to a 12V battery. It’s worth noting that you should take extra caution when working with both external batteries, the Raspberry Pi GPIO will not tolerate any voltages over 3.3V. Confetti cannons no matter how small can also be dangerous if used incorrectly.
Software for the project was written using Python. Mestci also made use of Viam, a robotics-building platform. In the tutorial, Mestci mentions specifically using the Viam Python SDK. You can explore the software side of the project and check out the source code over at GitHub.
This is one of many Raspberry Pi projects we’ve featured lately. However, you can read more about the confetti bot specifically over at the project’s Hackster page.
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Ash Hill is a contributing writer for Tom's Hardware with a wealth of experience in the hobby electronics, 3D printing and PCs. She manages the Pi projects of the month and much of our daily Raspberry Pi reporting while also finding the best coupons and deals on all tech.
