I want to be the favorite son in law and do something exciting for my father in law, but I need some help on how to approach this project.My father in law has a huuuge garage and has dozens of filing cabinets that are neatly labelled plus dozens of shelves and desks (he pretty much has my dream garage). He loves organizing things, but to tell you the truth, his garage is kind of a mess. It's the kind of organized where only he knows where things are. Labels like "Air supplies", "Heat", "Car", "Weld", "Screws" can only get you so far in a garage with I'd guess is hundreds of tools and supplies.In addition to this, our families all live on the same street. As in its a street with 3 of his brothers and some of their kids and their families. My FIL has the biggest garage and everyone borrows stuff from him on a weekly basis. He loves sharing his tools that he's collected over his life, but can sometimes run into problems because people either don't put the tools back in the right place, or they have to wait for him to find the tool.This is my idea:When you walk into the garage there is an old computer / raspberry pi with one sole purpose. To be the inventory program. You search for an item, press enter, and then click the one your looking for and it will tell you where it is. Now I could stop here, but I really want to be the favorite. This is where it gets tricky. I want to install some sort of led system (with maybe a beep?) on each filing cabinet/shelf/drawer/section of the garage. When you select the item you're looking for, the led will turn on very bright for a few seconds allowing you to quickly find the location of the tool/screw/item.I have made desktop applications with ElectronJS, JavaFX while studying CS, but this is something new to me. I've never programmed something to work with hardware. I've looked online for open source applications to use with my raspberry pi, but I still feel lost. How do you connect an LED system to a raspberry pi that can be controlled by a desktop application? Any ideas on how to run the leds all around the garage?Thanks for the help! I'll keep you updated on if I become the favorite via /r/DIY https://ift.tt/3juoC1l
