Carnegie Mellon student Liana Kong recently designed a DIY musical rain poncho using an Atmel-powered Arduino Uno (ATmega328), FM tuner and flexible speaker. According to the official Adafruit blog, the poncho is capable of controlling the radio in a number of ways, including: Hood up/down – power, colorful snaps – different station presets and hood […]
The Kyub is a Maker friendly, open source MIDI keyboard kit that can be easily assembled by just about anyone. “Capacitive sensing gives the Kyub extremely sensitive action, [while] an internal accelerometer allows the volume of each note to be precisely controlled for versatile musical expression,” a Kyub rep explained in a recent Kickstarter post. […]
A team led by Alex Haff of NYU’s Science of Music school recently debuted a DIY paper circuit project dubbed Draw MIDI. The digital-based platform uses capacitance sensing to collect electrical signals from a pencil-and-paper keyboard. The signals are converted to MIDI with an Atmel-based Arduino Uno (ATmega328) that sends the code to a PC via a Max […]
Acrobotic Industries is currently selling an ATmega328-powered sound synthesizer kit for a cool $35. The kit includes all components needed for assembling a monophonic synthesizer. Aside from Atmel’s ATmega328 microcontroller (MCU), key specs and features include: Dual oscillators 6 wave forms (Sin, Triangle, Left Saw, Right Saw, Square, and Flat) Noise setting on the main oscillator Adjustable […]
A Maker by the name of Amir Segal has created a portable musical staircase for therapy sessions with autistic children using an ATmega32u4–powered board. “We decided to build a wooden frame around each step, at the end of which there is a laser source on one side, and a photosensor on the other side. The data […]
Amanda Ghassaei – creator of the Glitchbox and Vocal Effect Box – recently published a detailed list of build instructions for an Atmel-based (Duemilanova or Uno), Arduino-powered infrared touchscreen/coffee-table interface. According to Zoe Romano of the official Arduino blog, Ghassaei has been using the multitouch platform to control various music and graphics applications on her […]
Steven Kemper studied music composition and computer technology at the University of Virginia. Unsurprisingly, he was always fascinated with robotic instruments that can be programmed to play music, respond to human musicians and even improvise. So Kemper, along with colleagues Scott Barton and Troy Rogers, went on to found Expressive Machines Musical Instrument (EMMI), designing […]
An Italian startup aptly named MusicInk is using Bare Conductive ink and an Atmel-powered (ATmega328) Arduino Duemilanove to create educational musical instruments that can be drawn and played in just minutes. According to Liat Clark of Wired UK, MusicInk’s official kit currently includes a set of stencils, a trumpet with several keys and a guitar […]
A London-based sound artist and designer named Yuri Suzuki has designed a robot that allows people of all ages and abilities to write music. “I have passion to make and play music. I used to learn piano, trombone, guitar, however reading musical score is the biggest wall for me,” Suzuki told Wired (UK). “I used […]
Every Friday, we take a look at some of the smartest, most innovative projects that caught our attention on Kickstarter and Indiegogo over the last seven days. YOUMO This modular power strip gives you variety of charging options, which are customizable depending upon your needs. Good Gadgets has hit its $55,000 goal on Kickstarter. Mighty This first-of-its-kind device plays […]
