If you were a fan of Lego Dimensions, you may have a few Lego Minifigures lying around. If you're not sure what to do with them, check out this fun Raspberry Pi project by maker Dennis Mellican for a little inspiration. Not one to waste a good opportunity, this maker decided to use his old Minifigures with a Raspberry Pi to create an interactive jukebox for his son.
A Lego Dimensions pad is wired to a Raspberry Pi. When a Minifigure is placed on the pad, the Raspberry Pi runs a check to determine which figure was placed and changes the music to the Minifigure's corresponding track.
The Lego platform also has a picture frame used to house a phone. This can be used to display album art for the currently playing track. The Minifigures are detected using NFC tags, so anything with an NFC tag can be used in its place. This includes things like Amiibos, Skylanders and even Disney Infinity figures.
The Minifigures can control more than just music on Spotify. One of them is programmed to control lights in the house by sending a message through Slack. According to Mellican, this technically makes the Lego Dimensions system a home automation device.
If you want to explore this project, check out this post on Medium created by Mellican himself breaking down the project in detail.
