Generate Story Character Names with the Teensy

I am a fiction writer and sometimes it is hard to come up with names for characters to use in a story. What I did was make a USB device to come up with storybook characters at a push of a button.

I was inspired by the Awesome button done by Matt Richardson of Make Magazine. The instant I saw the Awesome button, I wanted to build one, but I had different goals in mind. I also had an extra Teensy since I ordered two when I converted a Nintendo controller to USB using a Teensy. When I bought them, pjrc.com had an micro-SD card reader as well, so I picked one of those up for cheap.

My goals were:

Make a project similar to the Awesome button.
Incorporate SD card functionality.
Make something that looks nice.
Build something that I will use. I didn't want to do a project just to do a project.

The Awesome button is pretty awesome, but I don't really need to come up with synonyms for awesome. The Character Name Generator is really a solution looking for a problem, but it does what it is designed to do.

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Step 1: Supplies

You will need:

a Teensy 2.0 available at (http://www.pjrc.com/store/teensy.html) for $16
an SD adapter available at (http://www.pjrc.com/store/sd_adaptor.html) for $8
a pink LED (parts drawers at Radio Shack)
a blue LED(parts drawers at Radio Shack)
220 ohm resisters (I didn't have any, so I just used 330 ohm resisters. LEDs are still pretty bright.)
a pink arcade button (http://www.adafruit.com/products/473) for $2.95
a blue arcade button (http://www.adafruit.com/products/476) for $2.95
some prototype perfboard. (Radio Shack)
male and female headers.
Some arduino shield stacking headers. (https://www.adafruit.com/products/85) $1.50
Some wire. (Savaged mine from a Nintendo controller cord left over from a USB Nintendo controller conversion.)
solder and a soldering iron
a miniusb cable (monoprice.com)
some kind of enclosure (Radioshack)
adhesive labels and a printer.