DPF

Software

• Installing Linux
• Wireless authentication
• Fetching Pictures from Flickr
• Automating the functionality

Hardware

• Taking out the unessentials
• Modifying a shadow box
• Putting the laptop in the shadow box
• Mounting the laptop onto the wall

Purpose/Motivation

The Acoustics Lab at the University of Central Arkansas provides opportunities for Physics students to gain hands-on research experience in the Acoustics field. Dr. Slaton runs the lab, and he wanted a way to showcase student research in a dynamic way. He decided that a digital picture frame (DPF) was the best way to do this. But digital picture frames are expensive, particularly ones with screens as large as Dr. Slaton wanted. So he approached a Computer Science major, Jennifer Rullmann, about collaboratively designing and implementing a custom DPF.

Like many custom DPF projects, we started with an old laptop. Below you'll find a summary of the components of the system, as well as links to more detailed information about what we did.

Software Overview

We decided to use Linux as the operating system for the DPF because it's free and easily configured to our needs. Once we built the DPF we knew it would be difficult to access and change it's software, and Dr. Slaton wanted to be able to change the pictures quickly and easily, so we decided to have the DPF fetch pictures from the internet. Dr. Slaton could then upload pictures from any computer, and the DPF would download and display them without any intervention. We decided to use Flickr as the service to host the pictures Dr. Slaton would upload because of it's free API. We used Webilder to fetch the pictures from Flickr. Finally, we had bash scripts to control the functioning of the laptop. Look at the details of the software setup here.

The components of the software are: Linux & Flickr & Webilder & Bash Scripts

Hardware Overview

The laptop is an old Compaq m700 with a broken hinge that we bought cheap on Ebay. We took the laptop apart, removed everything we didn't need, and turned the monitor around so that it would lay flat on the motherboard. We then put the laptop in a shadow box and mounted it on the wall. Check out the details of the hardware setup here.

The components of the hardware are: Old Laptop & Wireless Network Card & Shadow Box

Final Product

Maintenance

We tried to design the DPF so that it would require as little interaction as possible to function. But sometimes things go wrong, so we wrote up a Maintenance Guide so that Dr. Slaton could fix issues with as little groping in the dark as possible.