As a toy for his daughter Anna, Dominick created this RFID enabled contact-free jukebox so that Anna can choose her tunes by placing a card near the front of the device. Like David Harris’s Charlie’s Bear, this fine project uses an Arduino, an RFID reader, and a Wave Shield (among a few other components). Why’d Dominick make it when a toy jukebox can be bought off the shelf?

Do they play the OS X startup chime while switching on? And can you fix them, after they break? Or better: can you program them to play a song only once and block them for an hour to save you from getting crazy? And there is still some space left in the case to add an amplifier.

Dominick posted his code and schematics on Github if you’d like to make your own RFID jukebox.

In the Maker Shed:

Makershedsmall

RFID Teddy Bear Project Bundle

BY Matt Richardson

Matt Richardson is a Brooklyn-based creative technologist, contributing editor for MAKE magazine, and co-author of Getting Started with Raspberry Pi. He's also the owner of Awesome Button Studios, a technology consultancy. Highlights from his work include the Descriptive Camera (a camera which outputs a text description instead of a photo) and The Enough Already (a DIY celebrity-silencing device). Matt's work has been featured at The Nevada Museum of Art, The Rome International Photography Festival, Milan Design Week and has garnered attention from The New York Times, Wired, and New York Magazine.

2 Responses to Contact-Free Jukebox Plays Tunes without Touching

  1. mpilchfamily on said:

    Wait a minute he had to touch it to turn it on. ;)

  2. This brings a whole new perspective on the old see-and-say toy from when I was a kid. It would make a great learning tool when related pictures are combined with their spoken name. Nice setup!

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