Making the Strofara

Stavros has created a humorous device called the Strofara, inspired by a Greek meme video featuring a comedic car crash. The device is designed to play an audio clip encouraging the driver during tight turns, mimicking the excitement expressed in the video. Using an MPU-6050 accelerometer and an ESP8266 microcontroller, Stavros programmed the device to detect turns and trigger an MP3 player to play the audio. The audio is played through a salvaged speaker, which is surprisingly loud. To address timing issues with the audio playback, he added a half-second of silence at the beginning of the audio file to ensure the full phrase is heard. The Strofara is housed in a simple printed enclosure, and the project is open source, with the code available on GitHub. Stavros invites feedback and interaction from readers and has shared a video demonstration of the device.

- Stavros created the Strofara to play audio encouragement during car turns.

- The device uses an accelerometer and microcontroller for turn detection.

- Audio playback issues were resolved by adding silence to the audio file.

- The project is open source, with code available on GitHub.

- A video demonstration of the Strofara is available online.