The Ubuntu Baby Rocker

Posted on 05 September 2009, at 12:45 pm, by Jeff Frantz

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My one-year old daughter appears to take after her mother in almost all ways, which is a really good thing. The only thing she seems to have inherited from me is that she doesn’t need a lot of sleep. She sleeps well at night, but once she’s up, she’s up, and that’s the end of it. She’s not much of a napper. Getting her to sleep during the day takes a pretty fair amount of effort: reading to her, singing to her, giving her warm bottles, ensuring the house is quiet, and… well, lots of rocking her to sleep.

So why didn’t someone show me this trick before now???

Check out the Ubuntu baby rocker script in the video above. This guy is a genius. He’s using an Ubuntu script to open and close his CD ROM drawer automatically and tied it to a child seat, creating a pleasant rocking motion.

Okay, I don’t think it’s a real child in the child seat in the video, and no, I wouldn’t actually put my own child in a contraption that wasn’t specifically designed, tested, and approved for such a use. But it’s fun to daydream anyway.

[via Waylou]

Tags | Jeff Frantz, Linux, Offbeat, Ubuntu

2 Comments For This Post

ritchie70 Says:
September 6th, 2009 at 10:55 am
“I wouldn’t actually put my own child in a contraption that wasn’t specifically designed, tested, and approved for such a use.”

I’m just curious what you think might go wrong?

The PC is on the floor, so it’s not going to fall off some table and drag the child with it.

There’s what, 6″ of movement in the CD drive? That’s clearly a baby seat intended to allow some rocking, it should be fine to move back and forth the tiny distance that it’s going.

If something’s going to go wrong, it’s going to be the breaking of the drive. Worst case the drawer pulls out. Looks to me based on string length that it would drop to the floor, or, at worst, onto the blankets on the child’s feet.

So I just don’t get the concern. I’d rather have an inherently simple gadget jostling my child than some more complex thing made in the land of melamine-in-food and lead-paint-on-toys.
Jeff Frantz Says:
September 8th, 2009 at 7:54 am
Ritchie – That’s a fair criticism. Had I actually been concerned that it might cause harm, I wouldn’t have posted the item out of fear that someone might try it.