This week on Maker Update, a MIDI compatible music box, alternative controller indie games at GDC, an Arduino for your knife, controlling your computer with zombie heads, free game developer software, and Hackspace issue 5. This week’s Cool Tool is the Makey Makey Kit.

Show Notes

Project of the Week

MIDI Music Box by Tim Alex Jacobs (aka Mitxela)
https://mitxela.com/projects/musicbox

GitHub Resources
https://github.com/mitxela/musicbox

News

My Alt.CTRL.GDC Report
https://makerprojectlab.com/the-makers-of-alt-ctrl-gdc-2018/

Alternative Controller Video Highlights Playlist
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHvctKwAXIO-uVVbR2gWnMjC40fDfmUtm

More Projects

KNIFE SHARPENING ANGLE COACH WITH BLUETOOTH & ARDUINO by Becky Stern
https://www.instructables.com/id/Bluetooth-Arduino-BNO055-Knife-Sharpening-Angle-Co/

Cool Tools Minute

Makey Makey Kit
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B008SFLEPE/ctmakerupdate-20

Scratch Games for Makey Makey
https://scratch.mit.edu/search/projects?q=makey+makey

Google Offline T-Rex Game
http://apps.thecodepost.org/trex/trex.html

Disco is Dead alternative controller game
http://thirdfloorgames.wixsite.com/discoisdead

MakeyMakeyalternative controller Project Gallery
https://labz.makeymakey.com/remixes

Tools/Tips

GameMaker Studio
https://www.yoyogames.com/get

Unity Personal
https://store.unity.com/products/unity-personal

Issue #5 of Hackspace magazine is out
https://hackspace.raspberrypi.org/issues/5

Maker Faires

MSI Chicago Mini Maker Faire
Ankara Mini Maker Faire

Transcript

This week on Maker Update, a MIDI compatible music box, alternative controller indie games at GDC, an Arduino for your knife, controlling your computer with zombie heads, free game developer software, and Hackspace issue 5.

I’m Donald Bell, welcome to another Maker Update. I hope everyone’s doing well. Aside from some allergies, I’ve been having a great week. I got to go to that Alt.CTRL Showcase I was telling you about last week and it blew me away. I’ll tell you more about that in a minute, but first, let’s kick things off with the project of the week.

This MIDI Music Box by Tim Alex Jacobs (aka Mitxela) has been making the rounds this week. Between his blog post, his YouTube video, and his GitHub page, he walks through the ups and downs of trying to turn this hand-crank, punch card style music box into an instrument that can respond to digital music input using MIDI.

At first he tries to create a script that generates infinitely long, laser cut punch cards from MIDI notes. But the overlapping paper seams caused it to jam up and forced him to create this clever, though far more involved solution.

You’re looking at an array of 30 MIDI-controlled servos driving brass rods to individually pluck each note. Plus, one extra continuous rotation servo used to crank the winding gear automatically.

An STM32F103 project board, sort of like an Arduino Nano, is used to send PWM messages to each of the servos and take analog input from a breakout chip called a 6N137 which seems to be turning incoming MIDI signals into a varying analog output that the servo board can read.

Also, to make sure there’s enough power to drive all the servos, he’s got one of those big outboard power supplies you sometimes see on large LED light projects.

It is an ambitious, complicated, delicate project that I would probably never attempt — but man, the sound of the music box is so nice, I can absolutely understand wanting to take control of it.

It’s time for some news. And here’s where I’ll talk about my time covering GDC’s alt.CTRL showcase last week.

Off in the back section of this huge, corporate video game convention 20 groups of Makers showed off their one-of-a-kind games exploring the possibilities of new and surprising techniques for controlling or interacting with games.

For me, it was heaven. It was like a mini Maker Faire where every project was something fun you could play.

Everyone was super nice and happy to explain how they made everything. And most of the elements were exactly what we talk about on this show — Arduino, Raspberry Pi, addressable LEDs, 3D printing, laser cutting.

But on top of that was another layer I got to learn about, which was video game design, and platforms like Unity, which I’ll talk more about in a minute.

My only regret is that I was only able to get time with a handful of the 20 projects before needing to get back home. 5 of those interviews have turned into separate Maker Project Lab videos that I’ll link to here. Also, check out my full writeup on the Maker Project Lab website, with links and videos of all the other games.

Next year, if they’ll have me back, I’m bringing help so I can crank out more videos.

Alright, one more project from this past week that I want to mention is this Instructable from Becky Stern showing how to create a wireless box to help you find the best angle for sharpening your knives.

To effectively read the exact orientation of the blade in every direction, Becky uses a BNO055 9-axis breakout board. The data is then sent to an Adafruit Bluefruit Feather 32u4 microcontroller, allowing you to get feedback on your angle right on your phone.

The board also makes it tidy to plug in a small LiPo battery and bundle everything into a small box which snaps onto your knife with little magnets.

If you’re looking to refine your knife sharpening skills, or maybe your hand saw skills, this could be a great project for you.

It’s time for another Cool Tool review. This time, I’m going to show you guys the Makey Makey kit. This runs for around $50 on Amazon and it allows you quickly interact with your computer using everyday objects. If you want to pick one up, using the Amazon link in the description helps support my videos and the Cool Tools blog.

If you haven’t heard of the Makey Makey board, it’s been around for a few years now, and has become a staple of the STEAM educator toolkit.

But what I’ve only just learned is that it’s also a very popular tool for game developers who want to quickly prototype unique game controllers.

For example, I met this group of students last week who developed a fun zombie chase game called Disco is Dead. The game is controlled by slapping the sides of a costume store zombie head and touching a little disco ball for extra power.

Their not-so-secret weapon for making their zombie head disco ball controller was to just use aluminum foil and alligator clips to attach it all to a single Makey Makey board.

The genius of this board is that there’s no setup or programming required. You plug it in to your computer using the included USB cable, and it basically acts as a very limited keyboard.

For example, by holding the bottom section (labeled Earth) with one hand, I can use my other hand to navigate up, down, left, right, press the spacebar, or make a mouse click.

Slightly more advanced, I could take one of the many included alligator clips, connect up one side of an arcade button to Earth and the other side of the button to Space, and now I have a one-button game controller I can use to play Google’s offline dinosaur game.

Taking it further, I can find free Makey Makey compatible games and interactive instruments built in MIT’s Scratch platform, make more elaborate controllers with foil or fruit or copper tape. And if I want more inputs or a way to breadboard this into a project, I can flip it over and access more options.

That’s the Makey Makey. It works with any computer. The kit comes with a USB cable, a bunch of quality alligator clips, some hookup wire for exploring the connections on the back, and illustrated instructions to get you started. There’s also a huge online community with projects and ideas to explore.

You can find a link to pick one up in the video description, and you can see thousands of reader recommended tools like this at Cool-Tools.org.

On a related note, I have a few more tools and tips to share. Since I’ve been curious now to develop my own silly game just to see if I can, I’ve been looking into free platforms that would be good for beginners.

One I learned about at GDC is called Game Maker Studio. It can be used drag and drop, the results look great, and the tutorials are clearly geared towards curious beginners like me.

Another option is the free edition of Unity. About half the games I demoed at GDC were built in Unity. If you really want to explore what a professional tool can do, this seems like the way to go.

I think as an analog, you can think of Game Maker Studio as a Tinkercad, and Unity as a Fusion 360. Either way, it’s cool that there are good, free tools for anyone to check out.

I also want to let you know that issue 5 of Hackspace magazine is out, with Lady Ada on the cover and a great profile on her. Plus, a dive into the Pi 3 B+, and working with LEDs. You can download the issue as a free PDF.

Maker Faires! We have two this weekend, including a mini faire in Chicago and one in Ankara Turkey. Check those out if you’re nearby.

And that does it for this week’s show. Be sure to subscribe, give a thumbs up or leave a comment. Get on the email list if you’re not already. Pick up a Makey Makey and play around with alternative controllers. And if you particularly enjoyed this show, or those GDC maker profile videos I did, you can buy me a coffee using the Buy Me a Coffee link right down here. That always feels great.

Also, this week, the Maker Project Lab channel passed 10,000 subscribers! I can’t tell you how happy that makes me, thinking that there’s that many of you out there who care about this stuff. Thank you for being here with me. Thanks for watching, and I’ll see you next week.