Blog Posts

Floris van Manen helped create DONKER LICHT, a beautiful LED art installation at the Meerrijk in Eindhoven.

 

There are 60 RGB led armatures with 16bit resolution per color controlled over DMX using a Teensy.  The lamps change color individually continuously, day and night.

Michele Perla put together a DIY USB MIDI Controller.  The MPC (Music Production Controller).

This video shows the controller in action at the Rome MakerFaire.

Mick needed a simple and effective instrument to create drum beats without having to manually write them note by note.  He wanted something more than most of the DIY MIDI controllers out there that use simple on/off buttons.  The answer was to build his own using force sensitive resistors (FSRs).

 

The controller has 16 buttons using FSRs arranged in a 4×4 matrix.  The FSRs can sense the amount of pressure applied to a button and use that information for things such as a velocity of a note, control change value, etc.

There is a pretty good write up on his HackADay.IO project page that includes schematics of the project.

Dave built a home heating monitor to collect data on the duty cycle of all the heating zones in his house in hopes better understanding the activity  off all the zones in order to reduce oil usage and save a few bucks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The first version of the project didn’t pan out so well.  The controller used didn’t work out so well.  In version 2 of the project Dave used Teensys to take data measurements and send the data another controller.

Dave found that storing the data on a webserver is easier than storing it in an embedded device, and displaying the data in HTML on a web page is more flexible that doing it in a Windows app.

 

 

Timothy Meyer helped his daughter improve her TARDIS pinewood derby car by adding light and sound to it.

Timothy used an orphaned micro speaker, a jiggle-switch motion sensor, and a blue LED to make the improvements.  The motion sensor allows for the TARDIS landing sound to be made when the car is touched.

The source code for the project can be found on the Nova Labs project page.

 

 

 

 

Doug Hoyte has made his own devise to assist with morse code transmission.

This is the keyer pared with a straight key

A dual-paddle (iambic) key is the preferred key for the project.

The guts of the box.

This keyer has a robust set of functions and can be built for less than $40.

The benefit of using an electronic keyer like this is that the keyer’s internal timing circuits determine the duration of the dots and dashes, and the spacing between them.

Be sure to check out Doug’s website and check out his detailed write up on the project.  He also made his code available on GitHub.

 

Fredrik Hübinette has made his own Teensy based lightsaber.

This awesome looking lightsaber features a Graflex 2.0 for the hilt, which is a prop made to look like the original Gaflex flash gun used for Luke’s  lightsaber in the original Star Wars.  WS2811 LEDs are used to light up one of the blades.  He’s also used SK6812 LED strips for another blade.

This video shows the light saber in action, including the different blades made for it.  The sound effects in his lightsaber are most impressive.

Frederick has documented his build on his web site and made his code available as well.  You can read his build log over on the fx-sabers forum.

We previously showed this similar but unrelated light saber project by the Firebrand Forge.

Jay Converse, The Tuba Guy, has outfitted his sousaphone with a sound activated LED system.  When he blows into his mouthpiece different patterned images come up.

Just one of his many very cool LED designs

He was at the Women’s March in Washington with his Sousaphone

This project makes great use of the Note Frequency tool in the Audio Library (see panel on right side).  The code was originally developed by Colin Duffy.

 

You can view more of Jay’s tuba projects on his Instagram page captainsousaflame as well as his Facebook page TubaGuyFairfax.

 

 

 

 

 

Kevin Bott and the Art + Technology +  Sustainablity Research Group at the University of New Mexico created a beautiful art installation, Skylight, at the Albuquerque Anderson-Abruzzo Balloon Museum in their famous balloon-shaped window.

Those LED runs are 24 feet long! Holy cow!

 

This video gives some information about the project and shows the LEDs in action.

The team has made their code available on GitHub.

Forum user Cyclist recently built a free pendulum clock.

The cool thing about a free pendulum is that it has no mechanical linkage, escapement mechanism, or direct mechanical power to keep it going.

A small magnet on the bottom of the pendulum induces a voltage on a coil mounted beneath as it swings past. The voltage is detected by Teensy’s a/d converter and triggers a propulsion pulse applied to the coil from a digital output pin. This gives the pendulum a tiny nudge to keep it going. The pendulum defies the senses, swinging in eerie silence.

Cyclist reported that the accuracy is all about the pendulum.  He had it going for about a week and it was running slow by a consistent 1 second per day. He’s working on trying to refine the pendulum  and pivot design for easier, finer adjustment.

Nick Metchalfe built his own audio spectrum analyzer that produces a detailed picture of what you are listing to in real time, showing the changing spectrum of live input signals up to 16 kHz.  By using 2 16×32 LED matrixes, the spectrum displays 64 bands.

This video show the spectrum analyzer in action.

Nick says that the Teensy Audio Library is at the heart of the design, providing audio capture and high resolution FFT routines. Audio frequency data is scaled and binned into logarithmic frequency response groupings and is plotted using a custom fast display driver into a spectrum that approximates the human auditory response for a balanced visual aesthetic.

Nick says that the Teensy Audio Library is at the heart of the design, providing audio capture and high resolution FFT routines. Audio frequency data is scaled and binned into logarithmic frequency response groupings and is plotted using a custom fast display driver into a spectrum that approximates the human auditory response for a balanced visual aesthetic.

He’s posted his spectrum analyzer code on GitHub.