Blog Posts

Drum Master Electric Drum Set

Wyatt Olsen built an incredible electronic drum set that that is fully portable and customizable.

Looking to get back to playing drums, Wyatt decided to create Dum Master, an electronic drum set.  The first rev was functional but had a few problems such as difficulty in getting accurate velocity sensing and the need for a separate computer to play the sounds.  Notable improvements with Rev 2 of the project include using peak detection hardware and using a Teensy with an Audio Shield for playback.

Additional details can be found on the Drum Master website.

Code for the project has been published on GitHub.

Omega Flight Computer

Delta Space Systems has developed a flight computer for launching rockets into high altitudes.

The Omega flight computer features 2 pyro channels, 2 servo outputs for thrust vector control, data logging, altitude measurements, and a gyroscope.  This latest version of their flight computer upgrades from using a Teensy 3.2 to a Teensy 3.5.  The increased processing power allows for additional data logging to make more accurate TVC (Thrust Vector Control) movements.  They were also able to eliminate the SD socket and flash chip from the design which contributed to a significant weight reduction.

TSynth

UHF made TSynth, an awesome sounding four note polyphonic synthesizer.

Inspired by the Teensy-Synth series by Notes & Volts, UHF set out to make his own synthesizer using a Teensy 3.6, Audio Shield, and the Audio Library.

 

This synth is packed with features including four voice polyphony with two oscillators per voice.  Check out the forum post for a full list of features on this incredible project.

 

Bubble Punk

Mohit Bhoite made Bubble Punk, a nifty little sculpture to measure temperature and humidity.

Along with a Teensy-LC, the sculpture uses an Adafruit SHT32-D sensor breakout board, a vintage HP5052 7415 7 segment display, and a WS2812B LED to light it up.

 

Dean Blackketter’s Expansion Add-On for Teensy 4.0

Dean Blackketter created an add-on board which makes Teensy 4.0’s bottom-side pads available as a second row of normal pins!

It attaches underneath with castellated holes to solder to Teensy 4.0’s bottom-side pads.

If you’ve wanted a way to plug Teensy 4.0 into a sturdy through-hole socket and have access to all the signals, this looks like a really nice way to gain easy access to those bottom-side pads.

Dean shared this PCB on OSH Park and the Kicad files on Github.  Much more detail is available on Dean’s forum post and conversation which follows.

Lilla MIDI Expander

Sandro Grassia made Lilla, an neat, open source,  polyphonic MIDI expander.

Lilla’s controls features 12 rotary encoders and 8 pushbuttons and includes MIDI in, MIDI thru, and stereo out.  It can read files from and SD card as well as internal memory.

Additional details as well as code for the project can be found on GitHub.

 

Acoustic Levitator

Arvind Singh (forum user vindar) made an amazing acoustic levitator.

An acoustic levitator uses sound waves to levitate small objects, and until a few years ago were expensive to construct using Langevin horns that required tight tolerances and operate at high voltages.  Asier Marzo from Bristol University published a paper demonstrating how an acoustic levitator can be constructed from off the shelf parts and run on low-voltage.

Arvind built a levitator from an Instructible project based on an Arduino Nano, then decided to improve upon it by building one with a Teensy 3.2.  The processing power and memort of the Teensy 3.2 allowed for additional options to be added such as a TFT display and a joystick.

The casing was 3D printed using wood PLA then stained and varnished making for a beautiful device.

Code, schematics, and STL files are available on Git Hub.

RCA 118 “tombstone” MP3 Player

Mike Mitchell (dundakitty of the forum) took an old RCA 118 radio and turned into a very classy looking MP3 player.

The radio was stripped down to it’s chassis, retaining the original tuning dial and the knobs.  A couple of small speakers and a 20-watt stereo amplifier that are both controlled by a Teensy 3.6.

MP3 files of old radio broadcasts were collected and loaded onto a micro SD card.  The Teensy reads the capacitance of the tuner to randomly select a directory and file on the SD card to play.   The Teensy Audio Library was used to add a “hissing” sound between stations for an authentic old-time radio effect.  The project is housed in a beautiful, custom-made cabinet.