Technology Will Save Us has released their DIY Instrument Kit – a kit that comes with a custom designed circuit board and all of the components you need to make your own musical device.
The DIY Instrument (formally the Lumiphone) takes about 1 hour to make, most of which is soldering. Once you have made your instrument: sensors detect the light emitted by the LEDs. You use your finger to interrupt the beams of light. The left beam controls the volume and the right beam controls the pitch.
Here’s an official demoing the build for the original Lumiphone:
Here’s an unofficial demo of a completed Lumiphone:
The DIY Instrument Kit is available now for £10.00.
via Palm Sounds
Micro Thingamagoop?
That thing is adorable! It should be a part of electronics 101 courses in schools. All we ever got to do on those courses were basic soldering without any real practical application on the finished product (heck, on another course we at least got to learn how to make modem cables). Any school class would be more fun to teach and to learn if people combined games, trivia and cute thingamajiggs instead of just dry facts.
Nice to see this reasonably price, it will make a great stocking stuffer
Educational.