soundpad

Intro

This is the first recipe of the InstantSOUP series. It’s something you can try out before you get your Wiring board. In this recipe we will build a sound toy with four pads. Pressing each pad will produce a different sound. We will be using a repurposed computer keyboard, replacing the keyboard keys with another kind of input.

Repurposing computer keyboards is an easy and effective way to dive into physical prototyping. Also, it’s probably the least expensive way to begin experimenting! Keyboards are useful because many kinds of software can be controlled with keyboard input. We can build a physical interface that doesn’t look like a keyboard, and still pass keyboard commands (keystrokes) from it to Flash. This technique has been used at Interaction-Ivrea in a number of interesting projects.

Keywords

keyboard, keyboard encoder, repurposing hardware devices, tinkering.

Focus

Input: physical and Boolean.

What you will learn

How to use the internal microcontroller of a keyboard instead of a real microcontroller to get an instantly satisfying physical interaction.
How to replace keyboard switches with switches of your own.

New concepts introduced in this recipe

Getting input from the physical world through a repurposed keyboard
Switches

Projects that use this technology

WoopeFi
Early Fight Suit
CreativeCollision

GO TO TASK 1: BUILD THE ELECTRONIC PARTS

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