The ‘80s may be long gone, but James Cochrane is bringing the keytar back with the help of an old HP Scanjet. For this, the Maker has taken an Arduino, a stepper motor shield, an optocoupler and an off-the-shelf MIDI keyboard for input, and integrated it into the flatbed scanner’s original features. The end result: the world’s first (and only) MIDI-controlled HP Scanjet keytar.

As he describes in his YouTube video:

This scanner had a hidden command set within the Scanner Control Language which allows you to send musical notes directly to the stepper motor. This is a tedious method where you have to enter the notes and durations manually into a text file (similar to G-code on a CNC machine). I have always used and will always use this method for my old school music videos; however, I wanted to try and build a MIDI-controlled stepper motor.

One day I had one of my HP Scanjets sitting on its side and for some reason it resembled a Roland SH-101 and that’s when I came up with the idea for the HP Scanjet Keytar. What a great way to merge both into a musical instrument.

Those wishing to relive the days of classic yet quirky keytar are in luck. Cochrane has provided a detailed breakdown of the device in the video below, and has shared its code on GitHub.

Like the rest of humanity, Arduino Sweden’s interaction designer Marcus Johansson has been glued to the Pokémon GO app. However, as fun as flicking a digital ball with your finger to catch ‘em all may be, he wanted something a bit more realistic. Enter the Arduino Pokéball.

Based off an Arduino CTC project, an Arduino 101 housed inside some protective casing allows him to physically throw the ball, which is then mimicked within the game. It uses the 101’s IMU and Bluetooth track the toss and then send it to the phone.

See it in action below!

The brainchild of Tomás de Camino Beck, Polymath Boxes are experimental sound boxes. Using a Genuino Uno and 101 along with some 3D printing, these units enable young Makers and adults to experiment with programming and math to produce noises and tunes, from square and triangular waves to sample players and interactive sound generators.

The boxes were originally conceived by Camino Beck as part of an open-source experimental art project with the goal of stimulating STEAM in education, from high school to college, and to allow artists, engineers and computer scientists, or pretty much anyone interested, to explore programming and digital fabrication. They were developed and fabricated in “Inventoria”–Costa Rica’s own idea of a Makerspace.

More than just a finished project, these boxes are designed to be hacked and to help move away from more conventional ways of thinking when it comes to sound.

These boxes use coding as a way to “write music,” and to take advantage of the diversity of physical low cost sensors to trigger sound. Some of the boxes play with basic waves, just creating basic  PWM, and others go from there to create arpeggiator and interactive. They will be used in several workshops and experimental music concerts in Costa Rica.

Do any of you stay awake at night agonizing over how the keytar could get even cooler? The 80s are over, so we know none of us do. Yet here we are, [James Cochrane] has gone out and turned a HP ScanJet Keytar for no apparent reason other than he thought it’d be cool. Don’t bring the 80’s back [James], the world is still recovering from the last time.

Kidding aside (except for the part of not bringing the 80s back), the keytar build is simple, but pretty cool. [James] took an Arduino, a MIDI interface, and a stepper motor driver and integrated it into some of the scanner’s original features. The travel that used to run the optics back and forth now produce the sound; the case of the scanner provides the resonance. He uses a sensor to detect when he’s at the end of the scanner’s travel and it instantly reverses to avoid collision.

A off-the-shelf MIDI keyboard acts as the input for the instrument. As you can hear in the video after the break; it’s not the worst sounding instrument in this age of digital music. As a bonus, he has an additional tutorial on making any stepper motor a MIDI device at the end of the video.

If you don’t have an HP ScanJet lying around, but you are up to your ears in surplus Commodore 64s, we’ve got another build you should check out.

Although there are plenty of DIY surveillance cameras already out there, MakeUseOf has taken it to the next level with the ability to remotely control its view. This DIY pan tilt camera uses a Raspberry Pi, an Arduino Uno, a pair of servos, and a USB webcam.

The Pi streams video to a webpage and adds a few buttons to move the camera. Due to the lack of the hardware PWM pins, the servos are controlled by the Arduino that is connected to the Pi. Meanwhile, a Python server handles the web interface and commands.

Sound interesting? Be sure to check out the entire build on MakeUseOf’s page here.

[Folkert van Heusden] sent us in his diabolical MIDI device. Ardio is a MIDI synthesizer of sorts, playing up to sixteen channels of square waves, each on its separate Arduino output pin, and mixed down to stereo with a bunch of resistors. It only plays square waves, and they don’t seem to be entirely in tune, but it makes a heck of a racket and makes use of an interesting architecture.

Ardio is made up of three separate el cheapo Arduino Minis, because…why not?! One Arduino handles the incoming MIDI data and sends note requests out to the other modules over I2C. The voice modules receive commands — play this frequency on that pin — and take care of the sound generation.

None of the chips are heavily loaded, and everything seems to run smoothly, despite the amount of data that’s coming in. As evidence, go download [Folkert]’s rendition of Abba’s classic “Chiquitita” in delicious sixteen-voice “harmony”. It’s a fun exercise in using what’s cheap and easy to get something done.

The people of Farmington, Connecticut, now have a beautiful, community-made interactive map to share the history of their town.

Read more on MAKE

The post Coding an Interactive Map of Their Hometown Connects a Community appeared first on Make: DIY Projects and Ideas for Makers.

[Aleksejs Mirnijs] needed a tool to accurately measure the power consumption of his Raspberry Pi and Arduino projects, which is an important parameter for dimensioning adequate power supplies and battery packs. Since most SBC projects require a USB hub anyway, he designed a smart, WiFi-enabled 4-port USB hub that is also a power meter – his entry for this year’s Hackaday Prize.

[Aleksejs’s] design is based on the FE1.1s 4-port USB 2.0 hub controller, with two additional ports for charging. Each port features an LT6106 current sensor and a power MOSFET to individually switch devices on and off as required. An Atmega32L monitors the bus voltage and current draw, switches the ports and talks to an ESP8266 module for WiFi connectivity. The supercharged hub also features a display, which lets you read the measured current and power consumption at a glance.

Unlike most cheap hubs out there, [Aleksejs’s] hub has a properly designed power path. If an external power supply is present, an onboard buck converter actively regulates the bus voltage while a power path controller safely disconnects the host’s power line. Although the first prototype is are already up and running, this project is still under heavy development. We’re curious to see the announced updates, which include a 2.2″ touchscreen and a 3D-printable enclosure.

Breaking bad habits can be difficult, but developing better ones isn’t so easy either. Mindful of this, former Project Ara founder Dan Makoski and David Khavari have come up with a smart, Arduino-friendly lamp that combines light, encouraging messages and a personal improvement algorithm to help you inch closer to your goal day by day.

Connect Peak to your smartphone using its configuration app and set up a habit you’d like to master–whether that’s exercising, reading more, learning a new instrument, meditating, or spending quality time with loved ones. Simply touch the lamp and it will then send you a motivational text message. It recommends a step towards your target that you’ve either entered yourself or have chosen at Peak’s suggestion. You can schedule reminders if you need that extra little push as well. Once completed, touch it again or text Peak and it’ll record your progress, celebrating with a burst of light.

What’s even cooler is the fact that Makoski and Khavari were fortunate enough to work with whiz kids (and our friends) Cesare Cacitti and Quin Etnyre. Peak was actually prototyped using the Arduino platform and currently runs on Etnyre’s own Qduino Mini. Its creators are also exploring the idea of opening the lamp up so developers and Makers can hack their own projects. We’ll have to wait and see until the end of its crowdfunding campaign!

Looking to form a better habit? Enjoy mini light shows? Then head over to Peak’s Kickstarter page, where you can learn more about the product, the philosophy and the entire design process.

Hi good people!

I have alot of robotic projects,and now I'm trying to make the one remote to control them all.

I have a lasercut box with a raspberry pi 3 inside, with the original 7 inch touch display, there is also two 3 axis joysticks. The touch display will do everything that I can't do with the joysticks. I currently have a quadroped robot using Phoenix Code controlled with a PS2 joypad. The interfacing on the touch display will be made in Kivy and python.

read more