Boris the Twitter Dino-Bot is a great hack that uses a toy dinosaur, a raspberry pi, python, and piface. Borris lets out a roar each time you receive a mention on twitter! From TeCoEd.

Boris!”A dinosaur that roars each time it is told to in a mention on Twitter”. Using the Pi Face, a kids dinosaur toy and Python to create a simple hack where it checks the incoming mentions for your Twitter user name and if it is present, you have been mentioned then it triggers the PiFace output to make the dinosaur roar.

1. Hacking the Dinosaur
The dinosaur or Boris as he is more affectionately know is from Marks and Spencers – a rather loud child’s toy that was left on a shelf to gather dust and needed hacking. The hack was very simple – open the Dino up, 6 screws and split the cast in two. The dinosaur was originally activated by a push button which made contact and completed the circuit. Step 1: This was removed via the button hole, I used a small piece of tin foil to permanently enable a connection across the circuit and a voltage when the PiFace port is coded to turn on

Read more.

Each Friday is PiDay here at Adafruit! Be sure to check out our posts, tutorials and new Raspberry Pi related products. Adafruit has the largest and best selection of Raspberry Pi accessories and all the code & tutorials to get you up and running in no time!