This christmas I decided to upgrade my ambition for the usual gingerbread house that I have been doing for ages. Of course it had to be driven by a Raspberry Pi!
But what functions to embedd into the house? After a long list of different ideas, I nailed it down to the following:

• A button to press outside the building to activate internal & external lighting.
• The lighting was implemented with one strong whit LED inside the house and one in the snow latern outside (constructed with mash mellows).
• A small candy Santa Claus with two alternating – flashig red LED as eyes in sync with a christmas tune (Jingle bell).
• As the house had to be equipped with a speaker to be able to play the music, I decided to implement AirPlay as well. This so that I could stream any nice musing during christmas to the “Pepparkakshus”.

Implementation of the single button actually had to perform two functions. A single press would turn on/off the white lighting. A double-press would activate the switching red-eye with coordinated music.

This was the end result. Enjoy: