Thanks for letting me show my MIDI controller toy project [show-and-tell] it turned out to be a really good show! Here is a little more information about the project:
I acquired a cool used toy from my local Salvation Army some time ago for a whopping $1.95, and knew it would be a fun toy to hack. In the past I’ve experimented with using circuit bending to hack toys to make goofy noises, but this time I wanted to try to make something more useful, like a MIDI controller. In other projects I’ve used the Teensy series of microcontrollers from PJRC to mimic USB devices, and realized it could be really useful in this project. It’s cheap, powerful, small and includes native USB HID functionality, and can be used with the Arduino IDE, so it seemed like the perfect solution for me. I was able to hack together this project in a couple of days, thanks to some really helpful generalized debouncing code that Limor posted back in 2009.
This is also my first attempt at creating an Instructable, so I have tons of pictures, documentation, source code and advice about how to turn almost any rescued toy into a MIDI controller. Hopefully it will help a few of your readers create their own cheap MIDI controllers 🙂
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
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