MIDI Keyboard Teardown and Analysis
Here is a great article from Open Music Labs which details the teardown and design of an old-school MIDI keyboard.
Education
Maker Education is such a valuable role. These stories will bring you the latest information and tales of maker educators who area spreading the maker mindset. Help others learn how to make things or how to think like a maker at makerspaces, schools, universities, and local communities. The importance of maker education can not be understated. We appreciate our educators.
Zero to Maker: Makerapolis, Minnesota
I grew up in Minneapolis and it will always hold a special place in my heart. I still believe that the people are the nicest in the world, and that it’s a fantastic place to live. I didn’t, however, realize how much of a maker town it is.
Lego Hadron Collider
This model by Bohr Institute physicist Sascha Mehlhase does not, of course, represent the whole Large Hadron Collider, which is a huge circular underground accelerator. Even at minifig scale, such a model would be enormous. Rather, it represents what is probably the most iconic part of the LHC, the ATLAS detector (Wikipedia). Dr. Mehlhase reports 80 hours of work in the build, about evenly split between design (in software) and physical assembly of its almost 10,000 bricks. [Thanks, Rachel!]
Fab Lab Boombox
MIT student Matthew Keeter designed and built this sweet little portable music player for his final project in Neil Gershenfeld’s famous How to Make (almost) Anything class. The case, a union of three octagonal prisms, is laser-cut from 5.2mm plywood, and features a five-“button” capacitive touch-sensing control panel. The music is stored on an SD card, loaded in the back of the player. The PCB is two-sided, and was cut with a robot PCB mill. All source files are provided.
Open MAKE in 2012
Start 2012 by crossing your “Ts” with the Exploratorium’s Tinkering Studio. Twenty Twelve begins with four tantalizing T-themes for the Tinkering Studio’s series of Open MAKE events. The first “T,” on Saturday, January 21, is Toys, and will include a visit from Lego sculptor Nathan Sawaya
Using XMEM to Read MIDI
Open Music Labs has released a tutorial and detailed build documentation on how to read 48-key electronic MIDI keyboard with the XMEM interface on an Atmega640.
Best of MAKE: Skill Builders
This past year here on MAKE we launched Skill Builder, a monthly series of articles, tutorials, and projects centered on a basic technical skill. For the year, we covered…
