Jeff Hopkins has developed and electronic aerophone, The Open Woodwind Project, that focuses on usability and easy to make yourself.
Jeff wanted to develop an electronic instrument that was easy to use, inexpensive, and easy for the average maker to build. The result was his electronic areophone, a MIDI woodwind controller.
The project uses a Teensy 3.2 and the Audio Library to create a good quality onboard synthesizer with waveform synthesis and reverb effect.
These demos show off the great sound effects that have been created using the the on board synth.
Often I make a quick demo involving pots to adjust parameters. I needed a good way to put pots on solderless breadboards.
I had been doing this way:
These little thumbwheel pots work, but they’re not easy to turn, and trying to turn them puts quite a bit of stress on the loose breadboard connections. They’re also too low to the surface, so people’s fingers get close to the wires and risk disconnecting them.
Socially, I’ve observed people tend to feel awkward touching these… maybe they don’t want to break my project? Or maybe it’s just not clear if they’re supposed to be touched and adjusted?
With knobs on top of the pots, a last-minute project really looks like something you’re supposed to touch!
The ones in this video are actually the first version I made, with only 6 header pins. Those worked, but they still weren’t as strong as I wanted.
My latest version adds another pair of pins. It’s *really* strong and secure when plugged into a breadboard.
The PCB is so very simple.
They can be ordered from OSH Park, if you’d like to have some for your next breadboard-based demo.
The pot used on these photos is Digikey # PTV09A-4020U-B103-ND. This is a very standard pinout for 6mm shaft pots, so many others are likely to work fine.
The colored knobs were ordered from a no-name Chinese merchant on Ebay. Searching on Ebay for “knob 6mm shaft” will bring up *lots* of them. These gray ones with colored tops were 10 piece for $1, with free shipping. The ones I got didn’t actually fit the 6mm shaft until I ran a drill bit into the center, but it’s hard to complain when they’re so incredibly cheap.
Best of all, real knobs with bright colors and sturdy construction really invite people to touch and adjust and play with a breadboard constructed demo, in fun ways that just aren’t socially feasible with trim pots!
This article was originally published on the DorkbotPDX website, on August 14, 2015. In late 2018, DorkbotPDX removed its blog section. An archive of the original article is still available on the Internet Archive. I am republishing this article here, so anyone wanting to make these sturdy pot boards can find the original info.
The panel uses L293B H-bridges to drive the motors. The fader wipers and touchtracks are connected directly to the Teensy. Each faders has it’s own PID control using 12 bit PWM at 14648.437 Hz. A second Teensy is reading the values from the faders via I2C and shows the raw values on the LED displays.
This project makes use of the ResponsiveAnalogRead. Gerrit notes that he’s found the performance to be pretty good. The faders can move fast and he’s been able to get very little overshoot, even at high speed.
Jonathan Payne made the Teenstrument64-LC, a cool MIDI sequencer made from an Adafruit Untztrument.
This device features 3 instruments on 3 MIDI channels as well as a 32 step sequencer for each instrument. It takes advantage of the native Teensy USB MIDI stack and also connects to an iPad using a USB camera connection kit.
James Best a very cool wall mounted LED music visualizer that lights up his room more than the over-head lights do.
Armed with blue tape and some hand tools, James got to work mounting 900 WS2812 LEDs. After a miss-step with some Gaffers tape and some sanding, the adhesive on the LED strips adhered nicely to the wooden base. The original Arduino didn’t have quite the processing power needed for the project, but the Teensy 3.2 with built in Direct Memory Access (DMA) was up to the task. The final enhancement to the project was a diffuser to help hide the internal components.
Additional information on the project can be found on this page.
Arduino “having11” Guy created an autonomous robot to hunt down and destroy dandelions.
After being frustrated a dandelions out pacing his grass between mows, Arduino Guy (who also does project consulting for) built a robot using a Devastator Tank Cassis from DFRobots, a Pixy2 Camera, and a Teensy 3.5, to roam a yard to identify dandelions and chop them down.
Additional details as wells as the code is available on this Hackster.io project page.
Daniel Gilbert (Tall Dog on Tindie) has developed a breakout board that let’s you easily use Arduino shields with the Teensy 3.5 or Teensy 3.6
This convenient board includes all parts needed to assemble a breakout board that allows you to connect a Teensy 3.5 or Teensy 3.6 to shields designed for the Arduino Due and Mega. It features switches to select between USB or external power as one to set the US host port’s power mode (used for the Teensy 3.6).
Sebastian Tomczak has improved his USB MIDI device from 8 gate and 16 CV outputs to 12 gate and 16 CV outputs.
This handy device has 16 control voltage (CV) outputs and 12 gate outputs. USB MIDI channels 1 – 8 are mapped to CV outputs 1 – 16 for pitch and velocity, and gates 1 – 8 for note on and off events. Gates 9 – 12 are mapped to note on and off events only on channel 9, and also will send a sync and transport signal based on MIDI clock messages if received.
Bryan Jacobs of Knick Knack Sound built PhOut12, a motor shield controlled through USB-MIDI.
The PhOut12 allows software traditionally used for music to control motors. The board can control up to 12 DC motors, solenoids, or relays, and up to four servos. It also has a couple of inputs for sensors, pedals, or knobs. This versatile board offers a lot of options for adding sound control to your art project.
Franck Galliat has developed XtsTinyBasicPlus to make it run on a Teensy ++ 2.0 and connect to a Cannon X-07 hand held computer.
XtsTinyBasicPlus is a fork of TinyBasic. This version features support for an SSD1306 LCD screen, a uSD card reader, WiFi using the ESP8266 module, and 2 serial ports. It can act as a little http server to execute an auto-script that outputs to a web browser.
Some additional information can be found on this blog page.
