Mashpad
Let the baby smash the keyboard.
Every key or click spawns a bright letter, shape, or a cute cartoon raccoon. It runs on a Raspberry Pi, letting them smash away on their own keyboard with their grubby little paws.
Built for two very determined toddlers.
I have twins. They are tiny chaos engines who are absolutely certain that the most interesting object in any room is whatever keyboard I am currently trying to work on. Every attempt to type became a negotiation.
I'd used Scott Hanselman's BabySmash with my first kid and loved it. But I wanted this one on a dedicated Raspberry Pi 4 by the desk, and BabySmash didn't run happily on the Pi I had. So Mashpad is my take: light enough for a Pi, loud enough for a toddler, and full of raccoons because of course it is.
Now they get their own keyboard that lights up and shouts letters, and I get mine back. Everybody wins. Mostly me.
How it runs
- Raspberry Pi OS Lite
No desktop environment required. Mashpad draws straight to the screen, so a cheap Pi handles it without breaking a sweat.
- Boots straight in
A systemd service starts it on
tty1at power-on. Plug the Pi in, it's already smashing, no login, no launcher. - Smash → letter → voice
Every key press or click spawns a letter, digit, shape, or raccoon, each with a spoken name and a fun sound effect.
Get Mashpad
On Windows
The quickest way to try it. Download the installer and run it. It's a per-user install, so there's no admin password and nothing to configure.
Download for WindowsLatest release · .exe installer
On a Raspberry Pi
What it was built for. Flash Raspberry Pi OS Lite, then clone and run the installer, which handles the system packages, sound, and the boot service.
git clone https://github.com/Box-of-Raccoons/mashpad ~/mashpad
cd ~/mashpad
sudo bash install.sh
Reboot and Mashpad starts on its own on tty1.