Yeah, this is certainly not the most elegant or efficient solution to the problem in terms of power usage, processing power, etc. But honestly, I don't really c

Yeah, this is certainly not the most elegant or efficient solution to the problem in terms of power usage, processing power, etc. But honestly, I don't really care. My criteria were: 1. What's easy? 2. What's cheap? 3. Raspberry Pis are cool. I wouldn't mind playing with one. I actually have programmed a microcontroller in C before (an Atmel Butterfly) but that was... 15 years ago? I haven't written C in at least 5 years. I'm fairly optimistic that the Pi would have continued for years. It has no connection to the internet, and the code is extremely simple. If I were designing a device that somehow needed to run without being touched for 10 years, then definitely a microcontroller would have been the way to go. Or maybe even just a timing circuit, no processor involved.