I Make Things

This week Eric Beug joins me this week to make a musical instrument out of walkmans. The mellotron is an instrument that uses taped audio through a keyboard interface. Finding inspiration in Mike Walters’ Melloman, we hacked together a simple circuit to trigger loops of tape to make a super simple sampler. We had originally thought to use getlofi’s parallel port sequencer, but ended up going with the arduino instead. I’ll have the pdf, including the program that goes on the arduino, available for download Saturday. - Subscribe Link

We got the walkmans for two bucks apiece on the west end of Canal Street in New York City and there were still a lot left there.! If you need an arduino, we sell them now in the Make: Store - Link

Get your eypatches and loose some teeth and you’re ready to watch Joe Grand and Bre Pettis join forces for another Awesome Electronics Workshop to introduce you to the Arrr-duino! In this tutorial, you’ll learn the basics of programming and setting up your arduino.

You can get an Arduino board in the Makezine store at or you can find plans to make your own from off the shelf parts. Then get some components and start playing around! You’ll want to go wander around the Arduino website and the Arduino playground where users can share ideas and benefit from their collective research. Once you’ve checked that all out, go get thne software. Whatever projects you make, take pictures of them and upload them to the Make: Flickr pool or you’ll have to walk the plank!

Intro to the Arduino PDF - Link
Buy one in the Make: Store - Link
Program Files - Link
Subscribe and get this podcast in itunes - Subscribe Link

Photo Link

I’m into ARGs, Alternative Reality Games, and they’re becoming more mainstream. In an ARG, you have to hear about the game and get involved and the people who play and make up these games call this a rabbit-hole. For example, the latest cover of wired has a few phone numbers on it that when you call them, a challenging game unfolds. The phone numbers are a rabbit hole. Once you call the number, you’re in the game. It’s kinda like Myst except played in meat-space.
Continue reading ‘Rabbit-Holes’

During World War II, GIs in the field built really amazing simple radios to listen too. These were made with materials that they could get their hands on and were small enough to carry around in a big pocket. You can modify this design if you want to set it up so that it’s tuneable too!

The first time I tried this, it didn’t work. It was frustrating, but I just went through my materials, blued the razor blade and it worked. The second time I tried to get it to work, I couldn’t get a station, I just got buzz. I played with everything and finally figured out that the ground connection wasn’t very good. When I fixed that, I was able to hear sports talk radio! One of the interesting things is that it works better or worse depending on where you put the pencil lead on the razor blade. If it doesn’t work the first time, don’t give up! Every project you work on can have 100% success as long as you don’t mind mistakes and redoing things!

Download the PDF to get the full instructions! - PDF Link