The Happiness Machine is an Internet connected printer that prints random happy thoughts by random people from across the web; press the big black button and the Happiness Machine prints a thought from someone who mentioned the word happy.
Ever since I saw Matt Webb's post back in 2006 about the social letterbox and the use of connected printers I've always wanted to create a project that uses a small printer connected to the Internet that can easily and simply print information.
Though The Happiness Machine uses content from We Feel Fine, the printer is completely agnostic to the data it prints; the logic is all done on the server so I can easily change what type of data comes back. It could easily be train times, news headlines or your day's appointments – the printer doesn't care – it's dumb. It just prints what comes back.
I still believe paper has advantages from time to time as a content delivery mechanism over all the screens that now pervade our lives; you can tear it off, put it in your wallet/purse, scribble on it or give it someone else without worrying whether it works with their OS. And it doesn't need a power source for display.
To get this to work I used a Nanode – an Arduino clone but with built in Ethernet. The thermal printer was bought from Cool Components. Then it was simply a case of writing some Arduino code and a little bit of PHP. I'll release the code as soon as I tidy it up.
Here's a little video of it in action.
Want to make your own? Here's some details that may help.
Also be sure to check out Berg's soon to be released, wonderful Little Printer.
