Since the TinkerKit doesn’t have any special modules directly related to music/sound, I decided to check out the project page to see if anyone had modified theirs to make and/or receive noises. There were a couple of interesting projects on that page (http://tinkerkit.com/en/Projects/HomePage), some of which were downright strange. Unfortunately none of them go into detail about exactly how the project was built, just the end result. The first project is a guy who put a soundtrack on a toilet, basically, that plays whenever you’re using the toilet so that you won’t hear any “sonic byproducts,” as he puts it. Another weird one is a large, clunky watch that beeps incessantly at you if you’ve been sitting down inside for too long, cleverly titled “Mama.” It spits out phrases like “Mama says take a break” and “Go outside.” I would guess that the man made this using some combination of photoresistors (to measure the sunlight) and gyroscopes/accelerometers (to measure movement), but, like I said, the website doesn’t give you instructions on how to duplicate these projects.
The most real-world useful project is the stuffed animal that wakes children up with an internal alarm clock that doesn’t make noise, but vibrates instead. The creator designed it explicitly for hearing-impaired children who might have trouble waking up to traditional alarm clocks. The toy has a panel that the parent can set to the appropriate number of hours. Once that time is up, the toy begins to vibrate. The creator also installed a snooze feature that the child can activate by squeezing the toy tightly. This function is made from a modified Whoopee cushion.
I suggest using the above ideas, and searching for your own creation that either disapproves these kinds or promotes these ideas. It looks like it seems hard to find someone who has produced a firmware about music. If this were my project I think that I would attempt to control song beats with user activity and code that controls output of tunes. The activity of the user will be sensed from accelerators and the songs story will change from a proximity sensor, but it will persist even when user aren’t present. This idea seems appropriate to me, but I like orchestra playing in the back ground and a performance to entertain me.
Hahaha… I loved the toilet privacy one! Do you think that the box behind the toilet is where the speakers are?
The stuffed animal alarm is very nice and well thought. Its funny because I was thinking how I would squeeze it 100 times before waking up, but the answer came right after, you can only snooze it 4 times and then it won’t stop vibrating.
Unsurprisingly, I really like the stuffed animal alarm clock. It sounds like something replicatable. (is that a word?) I wonder, if you throw it against a wall, does that turn off the alarm clock or activate snooze…?
Lucky us, our projects use no TinkerKit modules or addons!