Drums! You hit them, and they vibrate. It’s kind of fun. Piezoelectric elements can create electric current when they vibrate. [Will Dana] put two and two together to try and charge his phone on his YouTube channel WillsBuilds embedded below. It worked… about as well as you might expect. Which is to say: not very well. […]
As far as giving mechanical instruments electronic control goes, drums are probably the best candidate for conversion; learning to play them is challenging and loud for a human, but they’re a straightforward matter for a microcontroller. [Jeremy Cook]’s latest project takes this approach by using an Arduino Opta to play a tongue drum. [Jeremy]’s design […]
How it started: a simple repair job on a Roland drum machine. How it ended: a scratch-built FM drum synth module that’s completely analog, and completely cool. [Moritz Klein]’s journey down the analog drum machine rabbit hole started with a Roland TR-909, a hybrid drum machine from the mid-80s that combined sampled sounds with analog […]
The humble piezo disc buzzer is much more than something that makes tinny beeps in retro electronic equipment, it can also be used as a sensor. Tapping a piezo buzzer gives an interesting waveform, with a voltage spike followed by an envelope, and then a negative rebound voltage. It’s something [Igor Brichkov] is using, to […]
Two engineering students are hard at work on this air drum which they hope will help disabled people and people in nursing homes. Though, we think it just looks fun! Each board is its own module consisting of the electronics and 3D printed cases. The modules each contain an arduino mini, IR sensor, and LEDs. […]
Making a natural fiber like wool into something useful like a sweater involves a lot of steps. We might be familiar with shearing the sheep, spinning the wool into yarn, or knitting and weaving, but between shearing and spinning there’s another unfamiliar process you’ll have to go through. Known as carding, it helps align the […]
No drummer? No problem! With a little ingenuity, you can stuff the essentials of a drum kit into a box, and automate your rhythm section. Mind you, [Franco Molina]’s “DrumCube” doesn’t quite have the flash of a human drummer, but it does keep a steady beat and has a charm of its own. The drum […]