The Visiotron is a cool project we've made at Vitamean, our Marketing agency based in Normandy.

Our hypothesis at the beginning is that people are bored by touchable screens and other digital communication corners. We wanted a cool object, which attract people, and able to play messages around. So we invented the Visiotron, a kind of neo-retro scopitone, that launches videos, photos, audio files with old-school audio cassettes.

So welcome in this instructable, that shows to you how to build your own Visiotron! And don't forget that if you need, you can also rent our Visiotron for your event...

Step 1: First, the Design!

As we said earlier, the design is a significant part. It will shape how the people around will be attracted by your Visiotron. We wanted on our side to remind the cool designs of the 50's and 60's, of the jukebox and cars.

The design has to take into account the display, and the audio K7 rack.

The bottom grid is a critical part, with the metal logo, making the Visiotron looking like a real old-school stuff!

Step 2: Then, the Construction.

Main structure is composed of wood. In order to easier manipulate the Visiotron, it is made in two parts, fixed together with butterfly screws.

The wood has been painted, or covered with a nice imitation of colored leather. Finitions are done with great metal molded parts.

The logo at the bottom has been produced with a laser cutter.

The interface panel o nthe front of the Visiotron contains fake buttons ant lights, which will probably be used in the future.

Step 3: The Heart of the Visiotron!

Let's speak about the inside of the Visiotron!

Can you believe us if we tell you that we designed the "electronic" part of the Visiotron in only one afternoon, even if we are not developpers? This is possible thank to TimeSquAir, which is a fantastic brick, making every of us able to build "Internet of Things" use cases, without any knowledge in that domain required.

So we connected Our Visiotron to the Display via the HDMI interface, and some basic audio system to the audio jack connection.

We put also the NFC reader of the Visiotron in such a way to get its Antenna in the right position.

We put NFC labels on our audio K7. In order to make it smart, we glued also fake jackets on the K7.

Step 4: The Visiotron Workflow

Here comes the simple workflow making the magic:

First of all, we tap each K7 and its NFC label once on the NFC reader of the Visiotron. The node corresponding to each K7 appears on the parameter interface.

We associate each node to a number, or to a letter.

And we launch the corresponding video stored in the USB stick. Example, if we tap the "12" K7, the "12.avi" file is launched.

In order to fulfill the workflow, we make sure we kill any running video stream before playing a new one, we play a cool recognizable sound to confirm a K7 has been tapped, and we display a default background image we nothing is requested.

Step 5: Conclusion

Thanks to TimesSquAir, it was harder to design and build the Visiotron than to develop its electronic!

And if we want to add no functionalities tomorrow, like detecting a person in front of it, or having interactions through the front panel, it won't be a big deal!