Sunday, August 31, 2008

RSynth

Today I finished making my RSynth. This is a resistance-based synthesizer, based on a large variable resistor and a VCO circuit. My RSynth that I made today.
Here's another view:
My RSynth that I made today.
It's made from a piece of plywood with a large amount of conductive paint, a steel wire with tensioner, a copper wire with tensioner, and a 555 Timer-based VCO circuit, which, by the way, is extremely easy to build, and versatile, accepting power from 5-15 VDC.
And now for a video:

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

StickDuino Fun!

I got my StickDuino in the mail yesterday, and, upon opening it, realized something was missing: headers! There were no header pins! Luckily, I had some laying around. I placed those in their holes on the board, plugged the whole thing into a breadboard to hold it still, and soldered. Two minutes later, it was ready to go. Within 15 minutes, I had a program modified to control an RGB LED. After some further programming, I came up with this:
/*
* RGBRandom
* by Pete Marchetto
*
* Based on Loop by David Mellis. Randomly lights an RGB LED with one of 7 colors.
* Demonstrates the use of a for() loop and arrays.
*
*/

int timer = 1000; // The higher the number, the slower the timing.
int pins[] = { 0,1,3 }; // an array of pin numbers (Vcc or 3.3V is on pin 2)
int num_pins = 3; // the number of pins (i.e. the length of the array)

void setup()
{
int i;
randomSeed (analogRead (0)); // seeds the random number generator off A0
for (i = 0; i < num_pins; i++) // the array elements are numbered from 0 to num_pins - 1
pinMode(pins[i], OUTPUT); // set each pin as an output
}

void loop()
{
int i;

for (i = 0; i < num_pins; i++) { // loop through each pin...
digitalWrite(pins[random(0, 3)], LOW); // turning one on at random,
delay(timer); // pausing,
digitalWrite(pins[random(0,3)], HIGH); // and turning one off at random.
}
}

Which can be found at this location as a Processing file. So far, with the exception of the missing headers, I like it alot!

Sunday, August 10, 2008

Arduino Pirate Madness

A weekend project presentation from Make Magazine:

And if you fancy something a little easier to connect to, and easier to use on a breadboard, try the StickDuino. Mine's in the mail, and I'll be reviewing it at the meeting.

Thursday, August 7, 2008

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

After a brief interruption...


Here we go. Back to business on the first wednesday of September. We'll be in the Sci-Fi and Fantasy section at Webster's on Allen St.