Most kids wanted to be something like a fireman or an astronaut when they were growing up.

Me? I wanted to write music for videogames. Some of my favorite pieces of music came from my Commodore64 and Nintendo, classics that I still whistle whenever I find myself in an empty, echoey space.

Think about some of your early videogame experiences. How many themes can you remember? The classics are all accompanied by tunes that we remember to this day. Pacman. Zelda. Mario. Brilliant works defined as much by the restrictions of the “instrument” as by the imagination of their composer.

Well, life often takes you in different directions from your childhood dreams, but I’m lucky enough to get to play at mine as an adult. There’s a whole scene dedicated to writing music for these platforms, and I’ve been dying to dive in, but didn’t really know where to begin.

Luckily, GameBoy Genius over at 8bit collective has put together a great how-to for getting started with gameboy music, complete with a gameboy emulator and awesome tracking software for the gameboy itself. Here’s a sample of what you can create with it(mp3). The gameboy’s limitations gave it a sound very similar to the C64, which also holds a special place in my heart. There’s apparently a “getting started” guide for C64 music as well, guess what I’ll be checking out next?

Ok, this thing even has Arduino Clone stamped right on it and it’s $15. Yep, FIFTEEN BUCKS! True, it doesn’t have a usb connection on it but if you’ve got the tx/rx doohicky then you don’t need that anyway, right? – Link

I would love to make one of these for my house. A gigantic LED that is actually built using 12 real LED’s for the light and are a 20 to 1 scale. These LED’s were designed and built by Kei Yamamoto.

Lady Ada over at Adafruit has boarduinos in stock. These are arduino-style microcontrollers that are set up to fit on breadboards. This solves one of the pin spacing problems on the digital i/o side of the original arduino board and they’re cheaper because you’ve gotta have your own usb to tx/rx conversion tool.

I got one of those little usb to tx/rx converter doohickies recently at the NYU computer store right near Washington Square park. You also need one of these little tools for the Lily Pad ‘duino, so get yourself set up!

Boarduinos – Link
NYU computer store – Link

Hey all, I’m going to be in my lab pretty much all day Saturday and Sunday this weekend. I’m going to be working on my project, and you are all invited to come hang out, hack on your own project,  help with mine, or whatever. I have a couple of tables for workspace, and lots of random tools if you need them. I think Bre and Eric are coming out on Sunday, but I’ll be there both days. Consider this a bit of a teaser / makeshift space until we can get our actual NYC Resistor clubhouse. The workshop is located in Williamsburg near Kent and S 1st st. Call my phone at 347.244.3219 or email me at [email protected] if you are interested and I can give you the full directions.

As you may know from the meeting last night, I’m working on a fun open source project called RepRap. To summarize, its essentially an open source 3D printer that we’re building from scratch. I’ve been working on it for a while, and even though I’m close to having my first version up and running, I could still definitely use some help. Bre thought it would be a good idea to go over the main areas where I need help in the hopes that some of our smart friends could help!

Host Software

The biggest area where I need help is writing the host software. I have a solid programming background on the web, but I haven’t done much with client applications. I’m planning on using Processing and making a rad host control software. Ideally if you could help me with stuff like GUI interfaces, menus, and possibly serial communication, that would be awesome. If you have a java background, or even a programming background, I’d love to chat with you.

Graphic Design

I’d like the host software interface to look amazing as well as be amazing, and in order to do that, I need some pretty pictures made! I have some ideas for what i’d like for the host interface, specifically that it would be freaking awesome if it looked steampunk. Other than that, I would just generally love some help. It really shouldn’t be too hard, and I think it would be a fun project to work on.

Firmware

The robot itself is run off a single Arduino. I’ve started writing the code, and I think its coming along nicely. I would definitely love to have some help with it, or even just have a couple people run their eyeballs over it. A couple areas I could use help on are the serial comms, and the stepper algorithm. Someone with a good grasp of geometry could really help out here.

Mechanics

The mechanics are mostly done, but I’m always down for suggestions and improvements. I think Bre and I have really nailed it so far, and the axes really glide smoothly. If you’re a mechanically minded person (or even if you’re not!) feel free to come check it out.

Mostly there is just alot to be done. None of it is super hard, but the project is rather large and there is plenty to do. If anyone is interested in the project and/or helping out, I’m sure I could help you find something that you could do. Since the project spans all sorts of areas from software to firmware to electronics to mechanical, if you have skills in even one of those areas you can get started. If you don’t have skills in those areas, but are interested in learning… there are so many cool things here to learn about. When I started out with this project a year ago, I didn’t know anything about it. I just knew that it sounded awesome and that I wanted to do something cool. I still don’t know everything about it, and I’ve failed often in my quest, but I’ve learned a ton and had lots of fun along the way. Hopefully you will too!

~Zach Hoeken