Tag: Electronics
Moving on to smaller platforms, I tried out the Gemma device that Adafruit puts out, and built the inner workings of their Chirping Owl project. I wasn’t very interested in the owl part of this, and the sounds are not very owl-like to start with. It was more about testing ...
The SensorMote project was educational, but I found Zigbee to be a bit difficult to set up, and wanted to explore other wireless options. My search led me to a variety of CC3000 boards, in both shield and breakout form. At the time (April 2014) Xively.com was offering free Internet of ...
The TV B Gone can be used to turn off just about any screen from a distance. Lots of fun. This is a kit available from Adafruit and a number of suppliers. I’ve had a lot of luck with Adafruit products and service and their tutorials are really good, so that’s ...
My quest for an easy-to-use, high-quality audio board pretty much came to an end when Adafruit released their Audio FX Sound Board, available in both 8MB and 16MB versions, with and without a built in amp. Interestingly, this board uses the VS1000D codec chip, unlike many similar boards thast use ...
Next in my exploration of Arduino-compatible audio boards is Adafruit’s compact and multi-functional VS1053. This board came out earlier this year just as I was getting preoccupied with moving, and I only recently discovered it. I got this board for Christmas from my dad, and put it together as soon ...
After creating a more fully-outfitted workbench, I dove into a capacitive sensing noise maker, commonly known as a Theremin. Although, to be accurate, this is not a theremin in the truest sense. It beeps and makes a variety of ascending and descending tones in response to hand movement, but it doesn’t make ...
Jan/Feb 2013 After working with the Adafruit Wave Shield, I wanted something a bit more compact. Enter the Sparkfun MP3 Trigger v2.0, which uses a VS1063A codec chip. After testing the basic switch open/close triggers, I wired this to an PIR (infrared) trigger and simple switch. The PIR is a bit finicky, and couple probably be ...
Wave Shield by Adafruit – Worked the first time! I knew my interest in electronic music and the maker movement would come together at some point. It was just a matter of when. The first catalyst, back in 2012, started when an artist friend wanted to trigger sounds for a sculpture. ...