piPod

A music device for the modern world.

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Inspiration

In the past few years, phone addiction has risen to an extreme extent. This has impacted parts of community such as how people communicate, self isolation, and has also impacted peoples mental health. Oftentimes, people want to listen to music, but with everyone bringing their phones everywhere they go, this can devolve into distractions. Enter: piPod, a dedicated music listening device designed to remove distractions. The design was inspired by the iPod Video and Classic models.

What it does

piPod is a music player that operates with a touchscreen and can play local music or streamed. It features a modern easy-to-use UI that allows even non-tech experienced people to navigate the device.

How we built it

piPod uses Qt6 as the software/ui framework, YouTube API for streaming, a Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ for the main board and a 7 inch DSI screen for displaying content. We designed the main UI concept using Figma.

Challenges we ran into

When making sure all of our teammates were able to work on the project, we ran into issues with installing and using CMake. We fixed this eventually with PATH modifications, but it did set us back a bit.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We learned C++ in under 24 hours, made a working visually appealing Qt6 UI, and created and printed a 3D case for our project. We're proud of the progress we were able to make within this timeframe.

What we learned

Multiple people should work on multiple parts of the project; not multiple people on the same. For example, one person should work on backend while the other does frontend, different people working on different languages, et cetera.

What's next for piPod

Our next ideas are to source a display with a more fitting size to the project (e.g. 3in), implement a physical touchwheel with buttons and haptic feedback, replace the Raspberry Pi with a custom PCB, and replace the battery with a flat Li-ion.

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