Maybe I’m old fashioned, but you know what’s better than a frustrated 5 year-old yelling at Alexa to play their favorite tunes? The same kid using a arcade joystick to navigate and select those same tunes.
- It supports and encourages reading skills.
- Improves hand-eye coordination.
- He only has access to the songs we choose.
- No internet access required, no streaming bandwidth used for playing the same song 10 gillion times.
- Preset volume levels.
- No yelling repeatedly, “Alexa Stop. Alexa Play Gabby’s Dollhouse” while she misinterprets his request.
How? A while back I purchased a used arcade cabinet on Facebook Marketplace. It turns out, it was just a Raspberry Pi inside the cabinet with RetroPie installed (a linux-based software combination of tools for playing emulators).
About six months after purchase, I finally decided to update the RetroPie software… subsequently completely broke it… and then reimaged it. I learned a bunch in the process including about another piece of software called FruitBox (jukebox software for your Raspberry Pi). I ended up making an “retro arcade-styled” theme.
From the main arcade menu (EmulationStation), I added two options for accessing FruitBox. One link is for my music, and the other link (for my 5yo) includes an optional parameter that points to a folder that only includes his music. (Currently he’s a big fan of Gabby Cat and Jerry Reed).
Here’s a closer screenshot of an early version of the theme (ArcadeJoy) which you’ll soon be able to download from the FruitBox GitHub site.
I still have my 1954 AMI Jukebox, but it’s hard to explain to a child why I won’t be able to find a 45 of his favorite TV show theme. Despite what he thinks, sometimes you can’t “just order it online”…
