We have seen a fair share of unusual items being turned into musical instruments. Luckily, with a little bit of hacking it is possible to turn almost anything into a MIDI controller. [William Sun Petrus] just converted a 1920s typewriter into a drum machine and delivers a hell of a live performance on it. The build […]
DRUMMING A BEAT ON A HUNDRED-YEAR-OLD TYPEWRITER Continue Reading
The aim of the project is to make a wearable t-shirt that displays an evocative graphic when air pollution is above a set threshold. The graphic is inspired by the classic game “brick breakers”, in that the car is like a paddle which spits out the exhaust (which are like balls) that “hit” pieces of
EqualAir: Wearable NeoPixel Display Triggered by Air Pollution Sensor Continue Reading
While the Nintendo GameCube stood deep in the shadows of the PS2 in its day, its controller remains a popular target for all sorts of modifications today — many of them involving LEDs, thanks to a translucent bottom and button option. As an avid player of the Super Smash Bros. series, [goomysmash] is of course
COME ON BABY LIGHT MY FIRE BUTTON Continue Reading
One of the disadvantages of having cheap WiFi-capable boards like those based on the ESP32 is that you have to update them. If you have even a few in every room of your house, it can be a pain to pull them out and connect them to a cable for programming. Over the air programming
OTA ESP32 GUI MAKES UPDATES SIMPLE Continue Reading
This is a version 2.0 of one of my first forays into Arduino and DIY MIDI programming. I’ve developed my skills in prototyping and design so I thought it would be a good demonstration of process and progression. With a more informed design process I recycled the buttons from my first attempt and set off
Arcade Button MIDI Keyboard Continue Reading
This tutorial walks through the process of combining Arduino sample sketches to make a working project prototype. Developing the code for your project can be the most intimidating part, especially if you haven’t done it a thousand times already. If you’re a total Arduino newbie, try my free Arduino Class right here on Instructables. Let’s dive
Mash Up Arduino Code Samples Continue Reading
Working with graphics on microcontrollers has always meant focusing on making the most of limited resources. Particularly in the 8-bit era, all manner of tricks were used to get low-performance chips to achieve feats beyond their lowly station. However, these days, we’re blessed with 32-bit workhorses with clock speeds in the tens, or even hundreds,
NEW ARDUINO JPEG LIBRARY FOCUSES ON SPEED Continue Reading
There are plenty of “smart” toys out in the marketplace, some with more features than others. Nevertheless, most makers desire complete control over a platform, something that’s often lacking in any commercial offering. It was just this desire that motivated [MrDreamBot] to start hacking the Meccano Max. Meccano Max is a small-statured companion robot, at about
MECCANO MAX GETS HACKED Continue Reading
All the cool projects now can connect to a computer or phone for control, right? But it is a pain to create an app to run on different platforms to talk to your project. [Kevin Darrah] says no and shows how you can use Google Chrome to do the dirty work. He takes a garden-variety
BLUETOOTH CONTROL WITH CHROME Continue Reading
In this instructable, I will show you how to build a trampoline that changes colors whenever you jump on it! Step 1: The Things You Need Materials: 3 rolls of wire, different colors, the thinner the better Solder, the thinner the better – I had thick solder wires in the beginning, and it melted so
Jump Sensitive Neopixel Trampoline Continue Reading
