noisemaster

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In our introduction post I mentioned NoiseMaster 3000 and all of the noisemaking devices we built. Well, here’s another one in the series.

While I used wood for the first one, I chose MDF for this one. MDF has some nice qualities, like being smooth and consistent in surface and size, but besides all that, it’s terrible. Actually, I should say that I’m terrible when it comes to working with it. It’s not like wood, which is forgiving, and I seem to split MDF whenever I use it. I find it annoying, so why not work with it for a project that doesn’t matter that much, so I can try to improve my skills a bit. Good idea, right?

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This one again makes use of an ATtiny (I have like 20 of them) and I sort of liked this design when I built it. You’ll notice in the photo above that the screws holding the speaker in place are at a weird angle. That happened in transport, and was not planned. They were actually straight when I built it, but being piled in a bin with a dozen other noisemakers and other things caused a little damage.

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You can barely see it, but this one introduces something that will show up in future posts… 3D printed parts. It’s just the standoffs in this case, since I used all the laser-cut standoffs for the last one. Again, all electronics and wiring are exposed, by choice.

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I used a lot of screw terminal blocks, typically for power input (though sometimes for speaker output.) Like anything you make, if there’s a chance someone besides you might use it (or if you forget things) add labels! I did not add the ‘+’ and ‘-‘ to this, as I know that when I use two wire colors the darker one is always ground and the lighter one is always positive. Maks and Dustin didn’t know that, so they traced the symbols from the PCB and added the labels.

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This one once again remained pretty raw. I left the MDF as-is, and did not paint it or otherwise do anything to the surface. I was still just focused on building things quickly. (Don’t worry, that changed a bit as I built more of them.)

This is just one post in a series about noisemakers. Check out the other posts as well:

noisemaster-3000

Around the end of 2016 I got some PCBs made that would hold ATtiny85 chips, and I used them in a sound installation. I was trying to figure out how I might reuse the piece(s) for Maker Faire Milwaukee, but I didn’t want to hang things, and I didn’t want to do the same thing again…

After I made SpringTime4 I thought about using the ATtinys in various noise-making devices, and so the journey began. (I also convinced Maks to join in and the idea for NoiseMaster 3000 was born. Oh, and along the way we recruited Dustin to join us.)

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I started digging up all the speakers I could find, and grabbed lots of wall warts from Milwaukee Makerspace, and I’ve always got scrap wood on hand, so I started building. At first I just slapped things together fairly haphazardly, but as I built more devices, I started making design choices. (You’ll see these in future posts.) In this post, we’ve just got a simple noisemaker. You press a button, it makes noise. (One of the criteria we set was that everything would be momentary, so no on/off switches. Sound could only be activated temporarily, so no one could turn everything “on” and then walk away. Sound should only be present when a person was engaged with it.

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In nearly all of the noisemakers I built, I chose to keep the wires and electronics exposed, or on display, as it were. If I used enclosures, they were typically open on multiple sides. Speakers were almost always visible. I didn’t stray too far from that aesthetic as I built things. Most of the buttons provided power to the unit, which started the noise, though later there were a few that used the button to enable the speaker. A subtle difference most people would not notice, but if you did, you probably know how microcontrollers work. :)

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I started working on the noisemakers in June, and thought that would leave plenty of time to make a dozen before Maker Faire. I came pretty close too, and along the way ended up doing some interesting things (at least I like to think so.)

I plan to write up posts showing each noisemaker (hence the “Part I” in the title of this post.) I’ll include photos and a short video, and notes about construction.

Enjoy the Noise!

This is just one post in a series about noisemakers. Check out the other posts as well: