It is probably not difficult to be intrigued by the title of this showcase by Saad Chinoy.
Saad Chinoy is not new to the Maker community. For me, I remembered him from the Sustainable Living Lab (SL2) space two years back at *SCAPE. He was explaining his caffeinator (something he built and which he described as his obsession), and giving treats of DIY cookies and drinks. This year, Saad is back to entertain the crowd with his “ButtActivated Selfie Booth”.
In Saad’s own words, the “Butt-Activated Selfie Booth” is an IKEA-Hack with cardboard, duct tape and many cable-ties featuring “the-world’s-most-energy-efficient-high-resolution-analog-selfie-screen”. This booth lets you take a selfie with a touch of a butt and with a count of three, and photo-bombings are highly encouraged!
How did the idea come along?
It started in response to a call for makers for the Singapore Maker Festival. As the idea puts a smile on people’s faces, Saad decided to give it a try and build it. It was also in line with an image crowd-sourcing project that he was working on as part of his work, bringing what he does at work closer to what he does outside it.
This was Saad’s artist impression of the selfie booth.
These are the actual photos.
The creator can always spot the imperfection but to the onlooker, it is simply awesome. Of course, we noted that lots of effort went into prototyping, improvising and iterating.
How does it work?
Check out these precious work-in-progress photos that Saad revealed to help us understand the inner workings.
Saad also shared that the selfie-booth made its way to the RaspberryJAM#9 meetup as it runs on RaspberryPi and was written in Python code which Saad described as “awfully untidy hacky self-taught”.
Improvisation
Through the meetup, Saad received feedback which led to him spending another caffeinated night upgrading the electronics to a RaspberryPi2 (faster and better) for IDA’s TechSaturday as part of the HackerSpaceSG booth, appearing as “SelfieMirror” rather than “SelfieBooth” (see photos below). Interesting, isn’t it?
More photos can be found here:- https://instagram.com/selfieboothsg/
When asked if there is a video to show how this booth works, Saad shared that while a video works best that way, it also takes away the surprise through self-discovery. As much as I wish to see a video, I must say that I couldn’t agree any lesser with what he said as well. Now, I’m really looking forward to discover the magic of the booth myself! In Saad’s words, this could either be #ridiculouslySimple or #simplyRidiculous 🙂
Selfie Booth for Maker Faire Singapore
As the Selfie Booth has made its round like a travelling exhibition, it faces the challenges of maintenance, which Saad is taking time to work on whenever he is not working (a familiar situation most hobbyists find themselves in). In addition, he is also looking at decorating the booth exterior with “random acts of artsy-vandalism that can take place during the course of the Faire”. Wow, that sounds like an open invitation!
About Saad
Saad shared that he can’t really pin point when he first started making, but tinkering has always been part of his childhood. He shared that coming into public view was the scary part, i.e. to showcase what you made to people. It was great to hear that the Singapore Mini Maker Faire 2013 was his first step for that. How many of you also share this thought before? If you still do, take Saad as an example. Come forth and share your creation. It just gets better.
I couldn’t help grinning at Saad’s Syllogism (or #SillyGism) that he ended our interview with – “The world depends on technology. Technology depends on the Geek. The Geek depends on caffeine. Therefore, the world depends on coffee.” Well, that’s one coffee-obsessed geek for you.
Maker Faire Singapore 