This project is six years old, but I only just saw it for the first time. Still feels relevant. I clicked for the catchy name. I stayed for the hardware talk. Once I heard “video experimenter shield,” I was hooked. My knowledge of PComp is so limited, that this whole concept of shields is new to me.

This example showcases a video shield made by Nootropic Design. The shield allows you to feed the video signal from cable box to Arduino, which parses the closed captioning transcript for keywords. When a keyword is detected, the Arduino mutes the TV for 30 seconds via an IR sensor.

As Matt Richardson explains in the video, a world of possibility opens up when you turn your Arduino into an infrared remote control. It’s such a simple mechanism, but when used as a form of censorship or commentary, it has some real potential. Here it facilitated a conversation between cable box, Arduino, and TV, and between passive consumer/active producer by extension.

I also like that this project is explained well in the video. I feel like I could replicate this and then tweak with my own ideas.