Fridge Flight Tracker
This refrigerator-mounted tracking device reveals what plane is overhead.
Colin Waddell recently moved into a nice serene neighborhood. However, as lockdown restrictions began to ease, he and his wife realized that they were actually in the flight path for the Glasgow, Scotland airport. As he puts it, “We’re far enough away that the windows don’t always shake, but close enough to start noticing the difference in how each plane sounds.”
While not ideal, with the right correlating information it might be possible to train their ears to pick out the type of plane based on the sounds it makes. This concept led to the creation of the Fridge Flight Tracker, a Raspberry Pi-powered magnetic box that displays data on the aircraft flying over their house, pulled from Flightradar24. When there’s no aircraft directly overhead, it shows the date, time, and temperature outside.
The build is based on an 32x64 RGB LED panel, which can present a generous amount of data, and also has magnetic feet for mounting. This is housed in a nice laser cut birch box fabricated by Lee Turnbull, which includes screws that allow the screen's magnetic feet to mount, along with magnets attached to the box to grip the refrigerator.
Inside is a Raspberry Pi Zero W and an RGB Matrix Bonnet that runs the unit, hooked up to a section of Veroboard to keep internal wiring tidy. Power input is provided via a sleek push-pull connector, and there’s even a power switch with a nice LED light on top to turn the unit on or off.
Although the tracker won't silence the planes overhead, at least they'll know what's making the noise, plus have the neighborhood's coolest fridge magnet!