While media PCs based around the Raspberry Pi are old hat at this point, we recently came across one with a very special purpose.

Maker Alain Mauer wanted to create a TV for his son Scott who would normally have trouble telling his parents what, if anything, he wanted to watch.

Mauer then sought to make a media player that was “simple, robust and easy to clean”. The result is ScottTV, a large wooden panel consisting of a TV, six buttons and some clever engineering.

The screen displays a menu with previews of six different viewing options, which are related to the six buttons. Pressing one of the buttons will play that piece of media, and pressing it again will return to the main menu.

The menu was created as a media file in Sony Vegas and later expanded with a sub-menu in the third button.

For hardware, a regular ASUS screen lies behind a piece of acrylic to keep it from being damaged. Connected to it is a Raspberry Pi B+ given input from the yellow buttons. These buttons took the most time to make for Mauer, as he had to create a custom design to meet his needs.

If you want to learn more about the project, see the circuitry diagrams and read through the code used to make ScottTV, a full build log has been provided. It’s a really interesting read and we suggest you look through it even if you don’t intend to make a duplicate of this project.