Speaker Archives

Yellow Drum Machine

Build a funky little free-range drumbot that roams, makes beats, and samples.

Anyone who’s shivered in the dark at a scary movie or laughed at the unintentional cheese-ball of a bad sci-fi (paging Ed Wood) knows the eerie sounds of the theremin. In the classic theremin design, two antennas control pitch and volume, and you play the instrument by moving your hands near the antennas without touching […]

Whack-a-Mole Game

Jim Chen designed an excellent electronic “Whack-a-Mole” game using 555 timers, LEDs, and bent-diode touch sensors, that you can build on a solderless breadboard

Chladni Plate

Use a broken speaker, bits of wire, and tape to prepare a coneless voice coil driver, then use it to generate standing waves on a sheet of metal, making sound visible. Magic! My knowledgeable friend Robin once said that you don’t need to worry about having too big an audio amplifier, because speakers are usually […]

Arduino and Python: Learn Serial Programming

For this tutorial, you will need (or at least it is helpful to have) a knowledge of the Python programming language. You will also need an Arduino and, depending on how many of the projects below you want to work on, different electronic parts. Let’s dive in!