Results for LEGO

Some interesting things I found recently:

# Make: Online : Open source hardware 2009

Make’s definitive guide to open source hardware projects in 2009.

Welcome to definitive guide to open source hardware projects in 2009. First up – What is open source hardware? These are projects in which the creators have decided to completely publish all the source, schematics, firmware, software, bill of materials, parts list, drawings and "board" files to recreate the hardware – they also allow any use, including commercial. Similar to open source software like Linux, but this hardware centric.

Each year we do a guide to all open source hardware and this year there are over 125 unique projects/kits in 19 categories, up from about 60 in 2008, more than doubling the projects out there! – it’s incredible! Many are familiar with Arduino (shipping over 100,000 units, estimated) but there are many other projects just as exciting and filled with amazing communities – we think we’ve captured nearly all of them in this list. Some of these projects and kits are available from MAKE others from the makers themselves or other hardware manufacturers – but since it’s open source hardware you can make any of these yourself, start a business, everything is available, that’s the point.

# fridgebuzzz electronics MK1 MIDI controller

The MK1 prototype is a user programmable midi controller featuring 32 LED pushbutton switches and 6 touch sensitive copper plate switches.

… read more

Some interesting things I found recently:

# Dance music with MindStorms sounds

organfairy writes:

It has been a while since I made music on the MindStorms bricks. But now I present the longest and most complicated piece of MindStorms music I have ever made. The title of the melody is “the Future Child” and the idea is to make a cheerfull bleepy melody with the NXT’s tones and use the other sounds as effects while an organ and a synthesizer supplies the orchestra. Most of the pictures are robots made by myself. The rest is something I photographed at the First LEGO League competition in Herning back in 2007. The screenshots are from the NXT-G PC programming tools.

# Tic Tac Tunes – Now with Tic Tac Beat Box

AndyGadget @ Instructables created a Micro-organ and drum-kit in a Tic Tac box

This tiny box will give you hours of fun composing your own tunes. You can vary the tune tempo and switch between a pentatonic and blues scale as well as producing a variety of percussion sounds.
Load up a different program and it will compose its own percussion rhythms(Tic Tac Beat Box) or play with half a dozen different musical scales (Tic Tac Scales). Another cool feature is no power switch – It will hibernate when it's not being used.

There are great musicians around . . . and then there's me with no musical talent at all, but even I can get some great sounding tunes out of this. Watch the video and have a listen to the MP3 files to get an idea of what this little marvel can do.

… read more

Some interesting things I found recently:

# Awesome collection of DIY video-glitch hardware

From Make: Online:

The "tools" section of media artist Karl Klomp's website documents an impressive amount of bent, hacked and homebrew hardware for video manipulation. Devices such as the Failter (seen above) series go through a number of incarnations while Karl experiments with different hardware and uncovers its glitch-ability. The retro-simple feel of the enclosures give give it all a nicely 'scientific' almost medical feel.

# MPC2500 Gutted & Deconstructed (Vimeo) via Crate Kings

Hopefully most Akai owners will never have to witness their beloved music machine being gutted like this MPC2500 was. It’s not exactly pretty sight, but fascinating stuff for those that have been curious about the innards of a sampler/sequencer/drum machine.

# 279 / nanopedal via CDM

Marcus Fischer of dust breeding turned a Korg nanoKEY into a foot controller.

Marcus writes:

i’ve been wanting a compact usb midi foot pedal for a long time. i built one out of a usb number pad last year but it was less than ideal. tonight i popped all of the keys but five off of my korg nanokey in order to see how it would work as a pedal. it turned out that it worked really well. i cut some small pieces of plywood out to raise the key height and some scrap plexiglass to cover up the missing keys. a little spray paint and double stick tape and it was all finished.

i think it turned out pretty well. not bad for a cheap keyboard and scrap materials.

# Going Mobile: Nintendo DS-10 Comes to North America

Peter Kirn @ CDM writes:

Fans of the Nintendo DS in North America, the Korg DS-10 Plus synthesizer for Big N’s game system is now coming to your side of the Pacific Ocean. (That also bodes well, I think, for other parts of the world.) The DS-10 I think really deserves some credit for making a straight-up music title a hit on gaming platforms, and its success certainly surpassed my own expectations. It’s not a game, it’s not an interactive experience, it’s not a music game – it’s actually a synth and music workstation that happens to run on a game platform. The DS-10 Plus beefs up the original’s features, though it now has a commercially-available rival in the form of Rockstar’s Beaterator for PSP.

Some interesting things I found recently, and not so recently (since it’s been a while since I posted short links).

# Guitare à crayon

The idea behind “la Guitare à crayon” is to be able to paint and play music with the same instrument (crayon mean pencil in english). It’s a custom usb guitar with open source software: namely, pure data (for sound) and gimp, blender, flash (for visual).

Guitare à crayon

• Hardware features:
  • Accelerometer X-Axis (for example controlling the octave)
  • Accelerometer Y-Axis (for example controlling an effect)
  • 6 analog strings giving around 10 bits of resolution
  • External input: 1 analog, 1 digital
  • 4 positions switch
  • 8 buttons
  • 4 pots
  • 1 piezo with velocity filter (for example trigging any sound)
  • 1 ir distance sensor (+-6cm – +-20cm)
  • 1 unuseful led (for tapping the bpm)
  • Pressure-sensitive tablet
  • Foot controller (using a led & a photoresistor)
  • Foot switch (looper, change sound, …)
• Software features:
  • No driver (firmware & bootloader)
  • Linux, Windows, Mac
  • Pure Data poweful DSP (sample, soundfont, fx rack, multiple looper)
  • Gimp for 2d (drawing, painting, photo, …)
  • Gesture tracking on the tablet (linux only)

# 8 Track Walkman-Pod thing (Retro-tech)

Instructables user XenonJohn writes:

This is an admittedly mad project to see what might have happened if Sony had invented the Walkman earlier than they did – and made it so it took 8 track tape cartridges (which came before cassette tapes were invented).

In other words, can I make a personal 8 track player with just headphones in the style of a Walkman?

… read more

Some interesting things I found on August 8th, 2008:

# Musical Buttonpad for iPhone (Codename “PaklSound1″)

Developer Patryk writes:

For my first iPhone project I'm working on a musical button pad that is inspired by the Tenori-on (but quite a bit simpler).

Basic improvements pending until 1.00 release:

• better responsiveness
• eliminate lag when switching layers
• add more soundsets (thanks to freesound, probably!)

# Radiohead House of Cards Data: Time Lapse Rendering in Real Legos

Peter Kirn writes:

When the creative team behind Radiohead’s new video for House of Cards released 3D imaging data of Tom Yorke’s head, I’m sure they looked forward to finding out what people would do with it. I’m guessing one thing they didn’t expect was for someone to go manually through the data and painstakingly reproduce it in actual, physical Legos, one … brick … at … a … time, then make it into motion again with time lapse photography (okay, with a fair bit of fakery and digital legos added, though quite nicely).

# Carl Craig Gets an Orchestra – Not to be outdone by the Glitch Mob's unique live band approach to computer music, Detroit techno legend and Planet E boss Carl Craig is stepping away from the laptop and heading not to a MIDI controller, but a full orchestra setup.

# WolframTones algorithmic composition generator – WolframTones works by taking simple programs from Wolfram's computational universe, and using music theory and Mathematica algorithms to render them as music.

# iPhone Ups and Downs, Unhappy Developers, and the MIDI Controllers You Can’t Have Yet – Peter Kirn explains why some interesting things for your iPhone aren't happening…

• Apple won’t let some developers on their device,
• Apple is failing to communicate with developers,
• Apple is gagging developers and making coding harder.

# The Reconfigurable House installation, built with thousands of hacked toys and gadgets, an environment constructed from thousands of low tech components that can be "reconfigured" by its occupants. Any sensor/actuator can be connected to any other sensor/actuator — it is the occupants of the house who determine the systems that run inside it.

Some interesting things I found on July 11th, 2008:

# wire to the ear » » Listen to some pure Roland SH3 audio files. – Oliver Chesler has some Roland SH3 samples up for download.

He has been following a thread over at the Vintage Synth Explorer forum discussing the Roland SH-3.

Oliver writes:

Forum members have been contributing audio samples to see if there is a real difference between the 3 and 3A so I decided to upload a set for of my SH3 for everyone to check out. Each same is pure Roland SH3, no compressor or any effects. Recorded directly into a Motu 828 using Ableton Live.

You can download 24bit Wav files in a .zip (Creative Commons license) or listen to the 320kpbs MP3s at wire to the ear.

# Big Updates for Handheld Homebrew Music: NitroTracker 0.4, PSPSeq 3, PSP Rhythm 8 – Peter Kirn rounds up the latest and greatest for your Nintendo DS and Sony PSP handhelds.

# Lego Record Player – And yes, it works!

# Junk Kalimba – Made from a wall plug casing and various other pieces that were discarded on the drive of a demolished house. Piezo and 1/4" jack added.

# Hockey Organ – Graeme Patterson's sweet hocky organ project. The keys of the Casio SK1 control the players.

# DIY IRF610 MOSFET Class A Headphone Amplifier Project

Giovanni Militano writes:

Not thrilled with how a computer soundcard drove my 32 ohm Grado SR80 headphones, I decided to build myself a desktop headphone amplifier for the office.

# R2-D2 2.0 – Ben Burtt, the man who gave WALL-E a voice – Interview with Academy Award-winning sound designer Ben Burtt, who has created some of the most iconic sounds in film history, including the light saber's hum and crackle, and Darth Vader's asthmatic murmur.