We’ve all wanted it. Now you can build it.
Instant dance parties.
Personal theme music.
Motion activated music.
Booty Box.
Uses an Adafruit Wave Shield! Adding quality audio to an electronic project is surprisingly difficult. Here is a shield for Arduinos that solves this problem. It can play up to 22KHz, 12bit uncompressed audio files of any length. It’s low cost, available as an easy-to-make kit. It has an onboard DAC, filter and op-amp for high quality output. Audio files are read off of an SD/MMC card, which are available at nearly any store. Volume can be controlled with the onboard thumbwheel potentiometer.
Inspired by sitcoms and cartoons. I thought it would be fun to be able to add sound effects to my own life. So I made a sound effects suit jacket. The sound samples are triggered by a control panel with 4 buttons (3 for samples, 1 for changing sound banks). And then being played from an Arduino + Wave Shield through a portable speaker. All the hardware is kept within the inner jacket pockets while in use.
Uses an Adafruit Wave Shield! Adding quality audio to an electronic project is surprisingly difficult. Here is a shield for Arduinos that solves this problem. It can play up to 22KHz, 12bit uncompressed audio files of any length. It’s low cost, available as an easy-to-make kit. It has an onboard DAC, filter and op-amp for high quality output. Audio files are read off of an SD/MMC card, which are available at nearly any store. Volume can be controlled with the onboard thumbwheel potentiometer.
Here’s a great project shared on the Adafruit Forums! The final stages of completing an Arduino-powered real time Clock. And check out the great 3D printed case! From Open Clock Project.
One year later: a fully functional working prototype is complete!
The Waveshield memory constraint was solved by tricking the code into using a smaller buffer size. Diagnosis and helpful discussion on the topic with the good folks at Adafruit.
The code still needs some improvement, notably a way to “snooze” the alarm. And perhaps some devious trick to prevent a sleepy user from turning it off (a math test, perhaps!). And I need to work a bit more on the enclosure, to make it easier to build without a 3D printer.
But that’s just icing. My bad old alarm clock has now been officially retired!
Welcome to our new weekly feature Time travel Tuesday #timetravel – It’s a look back at the Adafruit, maker, science, technology and engineering world. Each week we’ll pick what was happening in the world of making – from what Adafruit was up to 1,2,3,4,5+ years ago, to stories around the web of yesteryear, to historic moments in science and beyond. As new team members join Adafruit they’ll be working on this feature so they can see where we’ve all been, with an eye to where we are going. Don’t worry – We’ll avoid paradoxes and if our calculations are correct, when this baby hits 88 miles per hour… you’re gonna see some serious… info
This week Ladyada & pt wind back the clock, let’s go BACK IN TIME – enjoy!
I was hoping to show this off on Show & Tell but it did not come to pass. As you had asked about projects using Adafruit products, I had built a Cylon Pumpkin with a twist – using a Wave Shield and infrared remote to trigger sounds and turn on or mute the eye sound.
I had originally had a problem with the Wave Shield not working but your eagle-eye support forum moderator spotted a potential cold joint (even where I thought I’d touched them up). My thanks to the support. I decided after the build that I needed a better soldering iron so I ordered a Hakko from you and will put it to good use.
Thanks for the great customer support, creativity in what you stock, and the Adafruit Learning Center helping to show the potential of your products.
Now to build a voice changer with the pumpkin’s Arduino/Wave Shield and one of your electret amplifier boards
Adafruit Wave Shield for Arduino Kit – v1.1 – Adding quality audio to an electronic project is surprisingly difficult. Here is a shield for Arduinos that solves this problem. It can play up to 22KHz, 12bit uncompressed audio files of any length. It’s low cost, available as an easy-to-make kit. It has an onboard DAC, filter and op-amp for high quality output. Audio files are read off of an SD/MMC card, which are available at nearly any store. Volume can be controlled with the onboard thumbwheel potentiometer.
Jerome wrote in to share his amazing animatronic Stargate Horus helmet.
I’ve been working on several Halloween costumes that use Arduino powered animatronics. The video shows my Stargate helmet that uses an Arduino to control five servos that make the head move around, fans open and close and eyes that light up. There is a full build tutorial here.
I also recently have been working on a full animatronic Iron Man suit for a friend. It uses RFID tags as control inputs to open/close the helmet and activate repulsors, forearm missile, moving back flaps and opening shoulder rocket pods. The helmet is set up with a wireless link using XBee radios with Adafruit XBee adapters and the repulsor sounds are handled by a WaveShield. Arduinos are used to control the servos.
Working like mad to finish the suit by Halloween! There will be a full tutorial when it’s done.
Thanks for all of your wonderful products and tutorials. My eight year old son just soldered his very first circuit.
HAPPY HALLOWEEN! Each day this month (Monday-Friday) we’re going to have a special “Electronic Halloween” post here on Adafruit. It will be a hack, mod, project or something we’ve found that combines all the best things about electronics and Halloween.
Kid robot – Helmet, chest plate, arm bracers, robot shins: Corrugated cardboard, Elmers glue, spray paint. Velcro straps from my hockey bag were used to keep some parts on.
Those are just some of our favorites, post up yours in the comments!
HAPPY HALLOWEEN! Each day this month (Monday-Friday) we’re going to have a special “Electronic Halloween” post here on Adafruit. It will be a hack, mod, project or something we’ve found that combines all the best things about electronics and Halloween.
HAPPY HALLOWEEN! Each day this month (Monday-Friday) we’re going to have a special “Electronic Halloween” post here on Adafruit. It will be a hack, mod, project or something we’ve found that combines all the best things about electronics and Halloween.
When in doubt of your posture just use the Bad Posture belt to get notified of your bad posture. This is enabled with an Arduino board, a Wave Shield from Ladyada, a flexi bend sensor and a push button! The bend sensor is fitted in a belt together with the rest of the electronics. By placing the bend sensor at the back of the belt I can detect when the back is arched and not. With the push button I set the desired arche of the back and “calibrate” the back and the belt to remember this value. When the back is more arched than this value the Wace Shield makes its sound!
Last Christmas I built a Quiz Buzzer System for my mother. She is a big fan of television quizzes and love to organize some with her friends and family. The particularity of this project is that you can choose your team buzzer sound from a list of more than 30 digital sounds.
The system is composed of a main console, 8 buttons, a power supply and a set of telephone cables. The core of the console, built in a plastic project box, is made of an Arduino Duemilanueve micro-controller coupled with an Adafruit wave shield. The 8 buttons are made out of small project boxes and arcade buttons, again from Adafruit. The buttons are connected to the main console using telephone jack and cables.
Really well packaged and put together system. I really like how each team gets to choose their buzzer sound before the game. Uses our Arduino Wave Shield and Arcade buttons!
Adding quality audio to an electronic project is surprisingly difficult. Here is a shield for Arduinos that solves this problem. It can play up to 22KHz, 12bit uncompressed audio files of any length. It’s low cost, available as an easy-to-make kit. It has an onboard DAC, filter and op-amp for high quality output. Audio files are read off of an SD/MMC card, which are available at nearly any store. Volume can be controlled with the onboard thumbwheel potentiometer.
I’ve been playing with Arduinos for a wee while now. These are small microprocessors you can build things with. They use the idea of shields which are small daughter boards that connect to the Arduino to provide extra hardware to do useful things with. One shield I have been playing with the the Adafruit Waveshield. This little board allows you to hook an SD card up to the Arduino and play .wav files from it. These are in mono, 22kHz format. Not HiFi but good enough for little projects. I decided to use one in my old phone to make it play music.
This is about the phone in my old Austin 7 garage where I am building an Austin 7 special. I don’t actually like phones (horrible, nasty things) so this one never actually did anything useful. I used an Arduino and a Adafruit Waveshield to make it into a musical phone playing suitably period songs.
Hello, just wanted to say thank you really. I ordered two Waveshields last week and they arrived on my doorstep yesterday. That is amazingly quick service! I usually wait weeks for things shipped from the U.S. to New Zealand. Thanks very much for that! Will enjoy putting them together and getting them working with my project I think.
I finished this today. It’s a box with a button. When you push the button, it plays a random David Lee Roth scream. Arduino based, with adafruit’s wav shield. Runs on a 9v battery. The red button on the upper right is the power button, the knob on the upper left is volume. The speaker is in the bottom of the case.
I built this RFID enabled jukebox with an Adafruit Waveshield for our daughter, Anna. I drew animals representing the audio tracks on RFID cards. Anna can pick an animal that she likes, wave it in the front of the jukebox and the song is being played.
I’ve used your kits on a few of the projects described on my blog. I just posted one that shows the Wave Shield being used by an Arduino-powered Connect4 player. I made the Connect4 board by CNC — I’d love to write it up so others could make it but I think a traditional circuit board would be easier for others to work with. Any suggestions on making an oversized board like that inexpensively? Thanks.
Another project I threw together using your amazing Wave Shield. Ready for the New Year before Christmas! Party on. A desktop motorized musical disco ball. Great for holiday parties, impromptu dance-offs, and Tuesday afternoons. Bling, Music, Arduino, and glitter covered styrofoam; this Instructable has got what you need to get your boogie on. Fires need help go get going, so do parties. I recently moved from Hartford where my boys @HPSU(http://hartfordpartystarters.org/) would get it started every week. Now I live in boring Indiana, where there are no parties(Save church socials). With that in mind and the Party Season upon us, Lets make.
What went into the design? The construction of the thing?
the final circuit board is an arduino, [Lady Ada - Limor Fried] waveshield, and accelerometer smashed together and made very small. i really just put existing technologies together– i can’t take a lot of credit here.
the industrial design was more fun. we didn’t want to use plastic so we experimented with felt and wood. coming up with a size, shape, and feel were the main goals- to create something that was pleasant to hold and sturdy enough to be tossed in the air.
Need some sounds for your Adafruit Wave Shield ? Steven at Code in the Attic has a MacOS Classic Sound Pack. Just make sure you visit http://bit.ly/vnlUrJ for the correct file conversion steps.
Adding quality audio to an electronic project is surprisingly difficult. Here is a shield for Arduinos that solves this problem. It can play up to 22KHz,
12bit uncompressed audio files of any length. It’s low cost, available as an easy-to-make kit. It has an onboard DAC, filter and op-amp for high quality output. Audio files are read off of an SD/MMC card, which are available at nearly any store. Volume can be controlled with the onboard thumbwheel potentiometer.
This shield is a kit, and comes with all parts you need to build it. Arduino, SD card, tools, speaker and headphones are not included. It is fairly easy to construct and anyone with a successful soldering project under their belt should be able to build it.
The shield comes with an Arduino library for easy use; simply drag uncompressed wave files onto the SD card and plug it in. Then use the library to play audio when buttons are pressed, or when a sensor goes off, or when serial data is received, etc. Audio is played asynchronously as an interrupt, so the Arduino can perform tasks while the audio is playing.
Can play any uncompressed 22KHz, 16bit, mono Wave (.wav) files of any size. While it isnt CD quality, it is certainly good enough to play music, have spoken word, or audio effects. Check out the demo video/audio at the webpage
Output is mono, into L and R channels, standard 3.5mm headphone jack and a connection for a speaker that is switched on when the headphones are unplugged
Files are read off of a FAT16-formatted SD/MMC card
Included library and examples makes playing audio easy
Please note that the library is rather bulky, requiring 10K of flash and more than 1/2 K of RAM for buffering audio. It works fine using an ATmega168-based
What it is really doing is playing 24 music tracks that I preloaded onto an SD card in WAV format. There are also 10 tuning noises tracks that get played when the tuner is turned.
Because this is the first time I did this I had a lot of help. Firstly the chaps and chapesses at Hackspace have been very supportive in teaching me how to use and Arduino, particularly Adrian McEwan and Oomlout. Also Jingle Joe who supervised my soldering of the Wave Shield, Brox who helped me decipher the ancient mysteries of FAT16 and Esme who helped dismantle the original radio… PS I did do some of it myself!
Rebecca’s Outfit is a running accessory designed to motivate the runner to keep a fast pace by subjecting him/her to horrendous music. Rebecca’s Outfit will play a song on the annoyance level of Rebecca Black’s “Friday”; if the runner is running fast, the song will play faster than the normal playback rate, and if the runner is standing still, the song will play slower than the normal playback rate. If the runner wants the song to be over more quickly (and also sound more hilarious) he/she will surely be motivated to keep running at a fast pace.
An additional component is a pair of sunglasses with a row of LEDs on top. The LEDs will blink with increasing frequency as the runner’s speed increases.
This is accomplished by an Arduino with a Wave Shield to play music, and an accelerometer to calculate the speed of the runner.
Adding quality audio to an electronic project is surprisingly difficult. Here is a shield for Arduinos that solves this problem. It can play up to 22KHz,
12bit uncompressed audio files of any length. It’s low cost, available as an easy-to-make kit. It has an onboard DAC, filter and op-amp for high quality output. Audio files are read off of an SD/MMC card, which are available at nearly any store. Volume can be controlled with the onboard thumbwheel potentiometer.
This shield is a kit, and comes with all parts you need to build it. Arduino, SD card, tools, speaker and headphones are not included. It is fairly easy to construct and anyone with a successful soldering project under their belt should be able to build it.
The shield comes with an Arduino library for easy use; simply drag uncompressed wave files onto the SD card and plug it in. Then use the library to play audio when buttons are pressed, or when a sensor goes off, or when serial data is received, etc. Audio is played asynchronously as an interrupt, so the Arduino can perform tasks while the audio is playing.
Can play any uncompressed 22KHz, 16bit, mono Wave (.wav) files of any size. While it isnt CD quality, it is certainly good enough to play music, have spoken word, or audio effects. Check out the demo video/audio at the webpage
Output is mono, into L and R channels, standard 3.5mm headphone jack and a connection for a speaker that is switched on when the headphones are unplugged
Files are read off of a FAT16-formatted SD/MMC card
Included library and examples makes playing audio easy
Please note that the library is rather bulky, requiring 10K of flash and more than 1/2 K of RAM for buffering audio. It works fine using an ATmega168-based
A friend wanted me to modify a toy music player to play her choice of music. I ended up using a Waveshield as an SD card reader, player, and amplifier, a Mintyboost to power the whole thing from the toy’s existing 2xAA cell holder, and an Arduino Pro Mini 328 as the CPU.
Well, another project has already consumed some of my time. I have decided to do a large project that will take up alot of time and would be a great learning experience. I have decided to make a pinball machine! And what a great theme, NBA Hangtime! I use to play this game growing up and still do, I even have a MAME machine sitting inside a Hangtime Cabinet. What makes the game excellent are many things, like the dunks, the minimal rules, 2 on 2, and who can forget the audio??? “Ooohhhhhhhhhh… BOOM Shaka Laka!”. Well I thought that the audio board would be the first thing to do, since it would make or break this machine. I am very pleased with the outcome!
Created using LyTec electroluminescent (EL) wire, driven by a
IFW 3294 inverter (Coolight.com), with the Sparkfun.com EL Sequencer, an Arduino USB Board (arduino.cc), a WaveShield (adafruit.com) and a PIR Sensor.
It’s that time! HOLIDAY TIME! We’re going to do a gift guide almost every day for the next couple months, if you need to print out our store catalog, you can do that here (PDF).
Today we’re kicking it off with a gift guide for the Arduino enthusiast who already has an Arduino and wishes to do more!
Shields allow you to turn an Arduino into things like music players, robots, wireless and more. Here is just a small sampling of 10 great shields to be given as gifts for friends, family or yourself! If you’re hungry for more be sure to visit http://shieldlist.org/ for a very comprehensive list!
In our list we also indicated which ones are open source hardware – Lastly, post your favorite shields (and why) in the comments!
Let’s get started!
Sparkfun SM5100B Cellular Shield
The Cellular Shield for Arduino includes all the parts needed to interface your Arduino with an SM5100B cellular module. This allows you to easily add SMS, GSM/GPRS, and TCP/IP functionalities to your Arduino-based project. All you need to add cellular functionality to your Arduino project is a SIM card (pre-paid or straight from your phone) and an antenna and you can start sending Serial.print statements to make calls, send texts and serve web pages!
License: Not indicated
Adafruit Data logging shield for Arduino
Here’s a handy Arduino shield: we’ve had a lot of people looking for a dedicated and well-designed data logging shield. We worked hard to engineer an inexpensive but well-rounded design. Not only is it easy to assemble and customize, it also comes with great documentation and libraries.
You can get going quickly – saving data to files on any FAT16 or FAT32 formatted SD card, to be read by any plotting, spreadsheet or analysis program. We even have a tutorial on how to use two free software programs to plot your data The included Real Time Clock timestamps all your data with the current time, so that you know precisely what happened when!
Please note that this item does not come with an Arduino (you’ll need one to use with the shield), or an SD card. It does come with the RTC battery, however. The kit is un-assembled, You’ll need some basic soldering skills to put it together, but even if you don’t have much experience you can get it done in under 1 hour.
SD card interface works with FAT16 or FAT32 formatted cards. 3.3v level shifter circuitry prevents damage to your SD card
Real time clock (RTC) keeps the time going even when the Arduino is unplugged. The battery backup lasts for years
Included libraries and example code for both SD and RTC mean you can get going quickly
Prototyping area for soldering connectors, circuitry or sensors.
Onboard 3.3v regulator is both a reliable reference voltage and also reliably runs SD cards that require a lot of power to run
License: Open source hardware
Arduino Ethernet shield with micro SD connector – Assembled
The Arduino Ethernet Shield (assembled) allows an Arduino board to connect to the internet. It is based on the Wiznet W5100 ethernet chip (datasheet). The Wiznet W5100 provides a network (IP) stack capable of both TCP and UDP. It supports up to four simultaneous socket connections. Use the Ethernet library to write sketches which connect to the internet using the shield.
The new Ethernet shield now includes a micro SD card connector, it is MEGA compatible and an on-board reset controller.
The ethernet shield connects to an Arduino board using long wire-wrap headers which extend through the shield. This keeps the pin layout intact and allows another shield to be stacked on top.
Arduino uses digital pins 10, 11, 12, and 13 (SPI) to communicate with the W5100 on the ethernet shield. These pins cannot be used for general i/o.
The shield provides a standard RJ45 ethernet jack. An Arduino is necessary to use this shield but is not included.
2 connections for 5V ‘hobby’ servos connected to the Arduino’s high-resolution dedicated timer – no jitter!
4 H-Bridges: L293D chipset provides 0.6A per bridge (1.2A peak) with thermal shutdown protection, internal kickback protection diodes. Can run motors on 4.5VDC to 36VDC.
Up to 4 bi-directional DC motors with individual 8-bit speed selection (so, about 0.5% resolution)
Up to 2 stepper motors (unipolar or bipolar) with single coil, double coil or interleaved stepping.
Pull down resistors keep motors disabled during power-up
Big terminal block connectors to easily hook up wires (10-22AWG) and power
Arduino reset button brought up top
2-pin terminal block and jumper to connect external power, for seperate logic/motor supplies
Tested compatible with Arduino Mega, Diecimila & Duemilanove
Download the easy-to-use Arduino software library, check out the examples and you’re ready to go!
License: Open source hardware
RobotPirate Nixie tube ArduiNIX Shield
The ArduiNIX shield is a user programmable platform for driving multiplexed Nixie tube or other high voltage displays.
Works with the Uno! This prototyping shield is the best out there (well, I think so, at least). It works with UNO, NG, Diecimila and Duemilanove Arduinos. Check out these awesome specifcations:
It has a nice standard 0.1″x0.1″ prototying grid with big pads
A IC pattern for adding DIP ICs up to 20 pins
Power rails down the middle and sides
A reset button and an extra general use button
2 3mm general use LEDs, red and green, as well as 2 matching resistors
The ICSP header is up top if you like to upload to your Arduino using a programmer
A surface-mount chip area for up to 14 SOIC size parts
Compatible with either tiny breadboards or ‘standard’ breadboards with the rails removed.
Every pin is brought out, including the new 3V and Reset header pins
2 0.1uF capacitors on either side for extra power stability
License: Open source hardware
Touchscreen! 320×240 OLED Screen. Resistive Touch Screen. Storage for 4 full resolution images or 60 128×128 images. Only uses Arduino pins D2 and D3. Draw Shapes, Pixels, Colors, Graphs, Buttons with complete ease, using a SubProcessing graphics API.
Wayne and Layne Video Game Shield
The Video Game Shield is an Arduino add-on shield to make your own video games, including graphics, text, sound effects, and music! Using the power of open source, this Shield includes everything you need to make awesome black-and-white video games on your TV. It supports up to two Nintendo Wii Nunchuck controllers for an easy and familiar interface. Do you need to output text, graphics, or audio through RCA jacks to a TV? Do you need to work with two Nunchucks at the same time? You can do both of these things with Wayne and Layne’s Video Game Shield.
Adding quality audio to an electronic project is surprisingly difficult. Here is a shield for Arduinos that solves this problem. It can play up to 22KHz,
12bit uncompressed audio files of any length. It’s low cost, available as an easy-to-make kit. It has an onboard DAC, filter and op-amp for high quality output. Audio files are read off of an SD/MMC card, which are available at nearly any store. Volume can be controlled with the onboard thumbwheel potentiometer.
This shield is a kit, and comes with all parts you need to build it. Arduino, SD card, tools, speaker and headphones are not included. It is fairly easy to construct and anyone with a successful soldering project under their belt should be able to build it.
The shield comes with an Arduino library for easy use; simply drag uncompressed wave files onto the SD card and plug it in. Then use the library to play audio when buttons are pressed, or when a sensor goes off, or when serial data is received, etc. Audio is played asynchronously as an interrupt, so the Arduino can perform tasks while the audio is playing.
Can play any uncompressed 22KHz, 16bit, mono Wave (.wav) files of any size. While it isnt CD quality, it is certainly good enough to play music, have spoken word, or audio effects. Check out the demo video/audio at the webpage
Output is mono, into L and R channels, standard 3.5mm headphone jack and a connection for a speaker that is switched on when the headphones are unplugged
Files are read off of a FAT16-formatted SD/MMC card
Included library and examples makes playing audio easy
Please note that the library is rather bulky, requiring 10K of flash and more than 1/2 K of RAM for buffering audio. It works fine using an ATmega168-based
License: Open source hardware
WiShield – Async v2.0
Adds WiFi networking support to Arduino. 802.11b Wi-Fi certified. 1Mbps and 2 Mbps throughput speeds. Supports both infrastructure (BSS) and ad hoc (IBSS) wireless networks. WEP, both 64-bit and 128-bit. WPA/WPA2 (TKIP and AES) PSK.
The LED strips are mounted on an outdoor trellace which functions as a lightning simulator, outdoor breathalyzer, graphic equalizer synced to music, and a few other effects with sound.
The first part in the three piece suit, The Arm Cannon is Samus’s primary weapon, we are using a PVC base with EVA foam covering it to get the shape right, then we have an orange acrylic disc covering the barrel, with 12 LEDs inside, half red half yellow, the reason for this is we are going have two different beams to choose from, so while wearing the arm cannon you can switch from power beam to plasma beam, and by including an arduino we can either shoot a charge beam shot, or a standard shot. Galactic Federation troopers Joseph and Tony have bean assigned to Basic Structure and Electronics, Trooper Samual is in command of Painting and Texture.
Adding quality audio to an electronic project is surprisingly difficult. Here is a shield for Arduinos that solves this problem. It can play up to 22KHz, 12bit uncompressed audio files of any length. It’s low cost, available as an easy-to-make kit. It has an onboard DAC, filter and op-amp for high quality output. Audio files are read off of an SD/MMC card, which are available at nearly any store. Volume can be controlled with the onboard thumbwheel potentiometer.
This shield is a kit, and comes with all parts you need to build it. Arduino, SD card, tools, speaker and headphones are not included. It is fairly easy to construct and anyone with a successful soldering project under their belt should be able to build it.
The shield comes with an Arduino library for easy use; simply drag uncompressed wave files onto the SD card and plug it in. Then use the library to play audio when buttons are pressed, or when a sensor goes off, or when serial data is received, etc. Audio is played asynchronously as an interrupt, so the Arduino can perform tasks while the audio is playing.
Can play any uncompressed 22KHz, 16bit, mono Wave (.wav) files of any size. While it isnt CD quality, it is certainly good enough to play music, have spoken word, or audio effects. Check out the demo video/audio at the webpage
Output is mono, into L and R channels, standard 3.5mm headphone jack and a connection for a speaker that is switched on when the headphones are unplugged
Files are read off of a FAT16-formatted SD/MMC card
Included library and examples makes playing audio easy
Please note that the library is rather bulky, requiring 10K of flash and more than 1/2 K of RAM for buffering audio. It works fine using an ATmega168-based Arduino (or compatible) but for more complex projects I strongly recommend upgrading to an ATmega328!/li>
More information, including design notes, schematics, library, examples, etc is at the Wave Shield webpage
Le Concretophone derived from a performance research on working environments. Its name derives from a Brazilian art movement contemporary to Beat poetry which started as Poesia Concreta. It is a telephone made interactive with the combination of an Arduino microcontroller (www.arduino.cc) and a Waveshield (www.ladyada.net).
When picking up its handset, we are greeted by a sound mix of various customer service answering messages ( Talk Talk, House of Commons, White House…). Choosing between the options by pressing its buttons, we then hear a selection of six poems (Ginsberg, Decio Pignatari, Eliott).
The listener, faced with a transparent 1980′s retro phone is put in the playful position of wanting to pick up, promptly surprised by a disturbing set of forcefully suave voices, a deranged blend of familiar instructions.
Instead of sought after customer relief, the listener is now bound to hear poems about time, leisure and imagination.
The sound content can be changed according to the environment, the context and our intentions, thanks to removable SD card. We intend to continue developing its interactivity, aesthetic, and humour.
Cooper Bills and Anish Borkar, two EE students at Cornell, have created The Handy Lab Buddy, a multifunction device, based around an ATMega 644, that measures voltages, logic levels and frequencies, and then “speaks” the results via a wavetable. They write:
The Handy Lab Buddy is a tool every ECE should have. The four features of this tool include a talking voltmeter, logic probe, voltage averager, and frequency measurer. As a cheap and accurate device that outputs whatever being measured through speakers, it’s one of its kind and an essential tool for lab work.
The “voltage averager” feature is particularly interesting. It takes multiple voltage samples, and then outputs the average, as well as the min and max levels, over the speaker.
If you want to do this project yourself, they provide the schematic and code on the website. Alternatively, you could try something similar with an Arduino and a WaveShield.
INCREDIBLE PROJECT! Steampunk Professor Xavier Wheelchair Project – powered with an Adafruit Waveshield!
SMEEON writes…
Finally got around to adding together some video clips I took. I had a lot of people asking about what it does and how, so here is a little walk through.
We spent some of the weekend sprucing up our blog – we’re up the latest update for wordpress and we’ve added dozens of new categories (with posts now in the appropriate ones). We’ll be rolling out some cool new features to the site later this week too. z00m!
Today is known as black Friday, it’s some type of Goth holiday, we think – so we decided to do a sale here on Adafruit. The following kits and items (below) are on sale 10% off – you also still get quantity discounting too! To get 10% off use the code BLACK on check out from now until Sunday 11:59pm ET 11/29/2009. We don’t many sales, so if you’re looking to give that special maker a gift that could spark a lifetime of learning – this is it!
There are a lot places you can get your holiday gift this year. We hope you’ll consider Adafruit – we’re open source hardware fanatics, we provide tons of tutorials, documentation, unique kits and we have a black cat (Mosfet). Happy Goth, cat, er, black Friday!
Kits on sale:
FUN AND GAMES! In this section we have clock kits, musical pencils, TV turn-off fun, electronics that spell words in the air and images appear on your bicycle wheels and mathematical LED displays!
Ice Tube Clock kit – v1.1. This is our first clock kit design, made with a retro Russian display tube! Hundreds of makers have build this clock from us and they love it – we think this is the gift for the electronic’s enthusiast in your life… Looks great in home and the office!
Assembled Drawdio fun pack – v1.1. Drawdio is an electronic pencil that lets you make music while you draw! This fun pack has all the fun without the soldering. Essentially, its a very simple musical synthesizer that uses the conductive properties of pencil graphite to create different sounds. Great for kids! There’s also a kit version if you’d like to build it yourself or with someone you’d like share the gift of electronics with!
TV-B-Gone Kit – Universal v1.2. Tired of all those LCD TVs everywhere? Want a break from advertisements while you’re trying to eat? Want to zap screens from across the street? The TV-B-Gone kit is what you need! This ultra-high-power, open source kit version of the popular TV-B-Gone is fun to make and even more fun to use. This version can be used in both “North American/Asia” as well as “Europe/UK” areas (basically, the whole world)!
MintyBoost Kit – v2.0. Make your own iPod/iPhone/GPS/etc… battery-pack and recharger! This project includes all the electronic parts necessary to build your own MintyBoost: a small & simple (but very powerful) USB charger for your iPod (or other mp3 player), camera, cell phone, and any other gadget you can plug into a USB port to charge.
MiniPOV 3 Kit – V 3.0. Spell words in the air! A simple POV toy for beginners who are looking to learn how to solder, how to program microcontrollers, or make LED blinky toys. Because the programmer is built into the kit, one does not need a special “microcontroller programmer”. This version can be used with PCs (Linux/Unix or Windows) and Macs (running MacOS X and with a USB/serial converter). A parallel port version is also available.
SpokePOV Kit. Make pictures appear on your bicycle wheels as you ride! The SpokePOV kit can display any image your imagination can come up with. Open source hardware and software let you modify, hack and create amazing images! You might also want to pick up the serial programmer of the USBTiny ISP to program the SpokePOVs.
Game of Life kit. In 1970, John Conway came up with a 1-player game called Game of Life. The Game of Life is a mathematical game that simulates ‘colonies’ that grow or die based on how crowded or lonely they are and is known for the way it creates a beautiful organic display out of randomness. Here is a design for a simple electronic project that plays Conway’s Game of Life. Make one kit and keep it on your desk, or attach multiple kit modules together to create a large display.
Fuzebox kit v1.0. The Fuzebox is a fully open-source, DIY 8-bit game console. It is designed specifically for people who know a little bit of programming to expand into designing and creating their own video games and demos. A full-featured core runs in the background and does all the video and audio processing so that your code stays clean and easy to understand.
YBox2 Kit – v1.1. The YBox2 is a DIY networked set-top box. Connect it to your TV and you can design customized content to be delivered direct from the Internet. This project is great for people who want a new platform to experiment with. The video and Internet cores are ready to go and easy to work with. We have some example widgets that demonstrate the YBox2′s capability, and the whole project is open source so you can start hacking your own. If you’ve ever been curious about the Parallax Propeller chip, the YBox2 is a perky little platform with tons of accessories.
Next up, AVR development, Arduino accessories, shields (music, motors, internet!), packs, SIM card readers and more!
USBtinyISP AVR Programmer Kit. Simply the best and most inexpensive AVR programmer out there! USBtinyISP is a simple open-source USB AVR programmer and SPI interface. It is low cost, easy to make, works great with avrdude, has both 6 and 10 pin standard ISP cables, is AVRStudio-compatible and tested under Windows and MacOS X. Using this programmer and avrdude you can program any in-circuit “serial” programmable chip that avrdude supports (which is nearly all of them). It does not do JTAG or High Voltage programming. You can re-program Arduino’s (and ‘minimal arduinos’) using this programmer.
Boarduino. Breadboard-Arduino... If you’ve ever struggled to use a solderless breadboard with an Arduino, you understand how frustrating it can be! This clone acts just like an Arduino, and works with the latest Arduino software. For many projects it can even be preferable! The kit includes all parts necessary, the assembly is straightforward and well documented. Also comes in a USB version!
Adafruit Proto Shield for Arduino Kit – v.5. If you’re getting started with Arduino and only get one shield, this is the one to get. This prototyping shield is the best out there (well, we think so, at least). It works with NG, Diecimila and Duemilanove Arduinos. Check out these awesome specifications: a nice standard 0.1″x0.1″ prototyping grid with big pads. IC pattern for adding DIP ICs up to 20 pins, power rails down the middle and sides, a reset button and an extra general use button, 2 3mm general use LEDs, red and green, as well as 2 matching resistors, an ICSP header is up top if you like to upload to your Arduino using a programmer, surface-mount chip area for up to 14 SOIC size parts, compatible with either tiny breadboards or ‘standard’ breadboards with the rails removed. Every pin is brought out, including the new 3V and Reset header pins, 2 0.1uF capacitors on either side for extra power stability.
Make some noise! Turn it up with Adafruit Wave Shield for Arduino Kit or the Music & sound add-on pack for Arduino! Adding quality audio to an electronic project is surprisingly difficult. Here is a shield for Arduinos that solves this problem. It can play up to 22KHz, 12bit uncompressed audio files of any length. It’s low cost, available as an easy-to-make kit. It has an onboard DAC, filter and op-amp for high quality output. Audio files are read off of an SD/MMC card, which are available at nearly any store. Volume can be controlled with the onboard thumbwheel potentiometer.
Where you at? Adafruit GPS logger shield kit – v1.1. GPS shield for Arduino kit with data-logging capability. After building this easy kit, you can create your own geo-locative project. This shield is designed to make GPS projects straight-forward and easy. Plug in a supported GPS module and run any of the example Arduino sketches for parsing GPS data (NMEA sentences), logging to a FAT16-formatted SD flash memory card and storing analog sensor data along with precise location, date and time in CSV format. The shield is designed specifically for use with the EM-406a module: the small surface-mount GPS connector is pre-soldered for you.
Adafruit Ethernet (XPort/WIZnet) shield for Arduino kit – v1.2. Get your Arduino talking on the internet! This is a shield that provides a lot of flexibility in adding Ethernet/Internet connectivity to Arduinos. You can use either an XPort module or a WIZnet module as the ‘engine’. Both modules have pros and cons, so you can decide which is better for you. You know all those project that have some physical object “tweeting”? This is the kit to get!
XBee Adapter kit – v1.1. Go wireless with Xbee. This adapter board is designed to make adding wireless point-to-point or mesh networking easy. We looked at all the XBee adapter boards available and decided to design something better. If you need to do wireless with computers or Arduinos, this is the adapter to get!
Adjustable breadboard power supply – v1.0. Power up! A good power supply is essential to electronic projects. While there are many existing designs for adjustable power supplies, this one makes improvements that make it more useful for hobby designs.
SIM Reader kit – v1.0. This is a SIM card reader/writer kit for experimentation and investigation of SIM & Smart cards. Once the kit is assenbled, accompanying software can be used to read and write from the card. Together they can be used to backup stored SIM card data, recover deleted SMS’s and phone contacts, examine the last 10 phone numbers dialed, etc. (Despite being called a SIM reader, it can also write to SIM cards). This project is fairly easy and can be soldered together within an hour, even if you’ve never soldered before!
Relive your 24 fantasies! Bomb Defuser – Pocket electrician – Ever worry about getting trapped in an building with a bomb that’s about to go off and you have to do some quick wire cutting but you remember you left your toolbox with the wirestrippers at home??? Well, even if you haven’t, this high quality keychain-size pocket tool will come in very useful in many other situations! For the first time we’re offering this at 10% for BLACK FRIDAY!
Remember! To get 10% off use the code BLACK on checkout from now until Sunday 11:59pm ET 11/29/2009. It is only for the kits in this list.
So Halloween is upon us again and I really wanted to use the Arduino I had. I went to the halloween store and found a skull with a hinged skull and that was the spark that began this project. I knew that it would probably be easy to have a servo move using the arduino and have it move the skull jaw up and down.
WaveRP is an Arduino library for recording and playing Wave files with the Adafruit Wave Shield. It records 8-bit mono files at 4,000 to 44,100 samples per second. Use of the Wave record/play library, WaveRP, requires the following: Arduino with a 5 volt 328 processor. Low noise power source such as a nine volt DC adapter or battery. Adafruit Wave Shield (version 1.1 is best but 1.0 works) Microphone preamp. A circuit for a simple preamp is included in the documentation. Microphone, PC type with 3.5 mm plug. See the documentation for details. SD/SDHC formatted with 32KB allocation units.
The Wave Shield!
Adding quality audio to an electronic project is surprisingly difficult. Here is a shield for Arduinos that solves this problem. It can play up to 22KHz, 12bit uncompressed audio files of any length. It’s low cost, available as an easy-to-make kit. It has an onboard DAC, filter and op-amp for high quality output. Audio files are read off of an SD/MMC card, which are available at nearly any store. Volume can be controlled with the onboard thumbwheel potentiometer.
This shield is a kit, and comes with all parts you need to build it. Arduino, SD card, tools, speaker and headphones are not included. It is fairly easy to construct andanyone with a successful soldering project under their belt should be able to build it.
The shield comes with an Arduino library for easy use; simply drag uncompressed wave files onto the SD card and plug it in. Then use the library to play audio when buttons are pressed, or when a sensor goes off, or when serial data is received, etc. Audio is played asynchronously as an interrupt, so the Arduino can perform tasks while the audio is playing.
Can play any uncompressed 22KHz, 16bit, mono Wave (.wav) files of any size. While it isnt CD quality, it is certainly good enough to play music, have spoken word, or audio effects. Check out the demo video/audio at the webpage
Output is mono, into L and R channels, standard 3.5mm headphone jack and a connection for a speaker that is switched on when the headphones are unplugged
Files are read off of a FAT16-formatted SD/MMC card
Included library and examples makes playing audio easy
Please note that the library rather bulky, requiring 10K of flash and more than 1/2 K of RAM for buffering audio. It works fine using an ATmega168-based Arduino (or compatible) but for more complex projects I strongly recommend upgrading to an ATmega328!
More information, including design notes, schematics, library, examples, etc is at the Wave Shield webpage
Latest Wave shield kit, works with more SD cards and with older NG Arduinos! Unassembled
2 GB SD card (brand may change, but we test one of each kind to verify it works well)
Speaker – 3″ diameter (77mm), 8 ohm impedence, good response between 200Hz to 10KHz (10KHz is the max frequency the Wave shield can make). The speaker is rated for 1W so if you want you can even stick a small amp between the shield and the speaker to boost up the volume
I’ve got the MeggySynth synchronized with an Arduino Waveshield, which has been preloaded with some slices of the Amen break. The MeggySynth is communicating via serial port with the Waveshield, and is triggering samples to be played on the Waveshield. The pattern is stored on the Meggy itself, since the Waveshield is sorely lacking in free ROM/RAM. Synchronization is still a little wonky. But I kind of like the stuttering sound. Other samples (like simple kicks and snares) sound better, but less interesting.
Adding quality audio to an electronic project is surprisingly difficult. Here is a shield for Arduinos that solves this problem. It can play up to 22KHz, 12bit uncompressed audio files of any length. It’s low cost, available as an easy-to-make kit. It has an onboard DAC, filter and op-amp for high quality output. Audio files are read off of an SD/MMC card, which are available at nearly any store. Volume can be controlled with the onboard thumbwheel potentiometer.
This shield is a kit, and comes with all parts you need to build it. Arduino, SD card, tools, speaker and headphones are not included. It is fairly easy to construct and anyone with a successful soldering project under their belt should be able to build it.
The shield comes with an Arduino library for easy use; simply drag uncompressed wave files onto the SD card and plug it in. Then use the library to play audio when buttons are pressed, or when a sensor goes off, or when serial data is received, etc. Audio is played asynchronously as an interrupt, so the Arduino can perform tasks while the audio is playing.
Can play any uncompressed 22KHz, 16bit, mono Wave (.wav) files of any size. While it isnt CD quality, it is certainly good enough to play music, have spoken word, or audio effects. Check out the demo video/audio at the webpage
Output is mono, into L and R channels, standard 3.5mm headphone jack and a connection for a speaker that is switched on when the headphones are unplugged
Files are read off of a FAT16-formatted SD/MMC card
Included library and examples makes playing audio easy
Please note that the library is rather bulky, requiring 10K of flash and more than 1/2 K of RAM for buffering audio. It works fine using an ATmega168-based Arduino (or compatible) but for more complex projects I strongly recommend upgrading to an ATmega328!
More information, including design notes, schematics, library, examples, etc is at the Wave Shield webpage.
Foofers (the Dragon?) makes scaley costumes and has designed a “rar-box” based on a Arduino + Wave shield to play special effects. When the button-pad is pressed, different sounds are played through a speaker fitted into the mask. A bit late for his halloween, but a good idea for any costume that could use some extra-yiffy-spiffyness. Check out video and details on his livejournal
Running out of space in your big Arduino project? Good news! Finally, after months of backorders, one can now buy the latest improvement to the ‘ATmega8′ line of chips: the ATmega328′s.
The ’328 has 32K of flash, and 2K of SRAM. Basically its got the capacity of an ATmega32 but in a slimmer package. These chips are notable for their ability to drop-in replace the ATmega168. So that means if you have an Arduino or compatible clone, it is a easy 2 minute swap.
If you have an Adafruit wave shield or GPS/datalogging shield, and you’re annoyed that the FAT16 libraries eats up so much flash and RAM, upgrading will definitely fix the problem.
I’ve merged my previous updates to the Arduino bootloader to the most recent release and also fixed 2 annoying bugs that have prevailed this long. (1. the missing signature bytes when using the bootloader directly and 2. the broken EEPROM code). Download the ’328-compatible bootloader files here.
Ever wish you had a monkey that would give you permission to avoid work?
Apparently, Marek Bereza does…he got together with some friends to make a stuffed money that will generate a random excuse whenever its glowing bellybutton is pressed.
The monkey is made using an arduino & an adafruit wave shield along with a backlit LED mounted on a aluminum ring
This to-be art project from Root Of Two combines electronics, speakers and a table. The project uses an Arduino and a Wave Shield and will have some sort of motion sensor – perhaps it will start speaking when people get close to it?
This is exactly the kind of project I was thinking of when I designed the Wave shield so I’m glad to see it being used!
I’m back from maker faire and am wrapping up the documentation for my latest fun toy. Its an Arduino shield that can play high quality audio, music and speech. One thing I’ve noticed in doing tronix for the last few years is how incredibly hard it is to have a project with audio in it. Audio takes up a lot of space, so you need a storage element, and our ears are sensitive to errors and noise so its tough to make it sound good. After mucking around with ISD chips, embedded MP3 boards, wiring to CD players, generating PWM sound, etc. I decided to investigate playing uncompressed Wave files from a memory card. Success!
Click on the play button to watch a demo of the wave shield playing assorted audio through a small speaker
The shield comes with an Arduino library for easy use; simply drag uncompressed wave files onto the SD card and plug it in. Then use the library to play audio when buttons are pressed, or when a sensor goes off, or when serial data is received, etc. Audio is played asynchronously as an interrupt, so the Arduino can perform tasks while the audio is playing.
* Can play any uncompressed 22KHz, 12bit, mono Wave (.wav) files of any size. While it isn’t CD quality (44KHz/16bit), it is certainly good enough to play music, have spoken word, or audio effects
* Output is mono, into L and R channels, standard 3.5mm headphone jack and a connection for a speaker that is switched on when the headphones are unplugged
* Files are read off of FAT16 formatted SD/MMC card
* Included library makes playing audio easy
Want more? Check out the webpage for documentation, code, schematics, etc & buy a kit!
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