Intel Edison's guest appearances

Intel Edison

element14 Presents

Dave Jones

Ben Heck

Matthew Eargle

Clem Mayer

Rocket Pi

Connor Miller

David of Technophiles

Roomba Nerf Dart

Ben Mods

Barebones Arduino

OwlTail

In the 1980s and 1990s, ‘Boomboxes’ were very popular. The sight of a person carrying a huge music player on their shoulder was iconic, until the Walkman came along. The team decided it's time for a retro-fit, using the intel Edison, with thanks to its Arduino compatible breakout board, and a USB soundcard it's time to make the Boombox smarter while keeping with its original parts. After all, the more parts that's kept, the easier it is to modify! Find out how Ben and the team powered the intel Edison using standard batteries and kept the good times rolling, what tech' would you retrofit with modern hardware? Let us know on the element14 Community.

Ben Heck's Smart Retro Boombox with Intel Edison

Inspired by Music Tech Fest in Berlin, The Ben Heck team finishes work on the Intel Edison Laser Harp. Ben and Karen handle all the electromechanical work while Felix finishes the coding. Have you ever made an electronic music instrument?

Ben Heck's Intel Edison Laser Harp Part 2: Assembly

Inspired by Music Tech Fest in Berlin, Ben and Felix create a Laser Harp using an Intel Edison single board computer and VST: virtual studio technology. The Intel Edison is a new single board computer from Intel that includes a dual core atom processor x86 with built in RAM, Flash, WIFI, and Bluetooth. Ben does tests for the laser harp using a breadboard, a bench power supply and an individual laser pointer element.  The laser element has a current limiting resistor built in so he just attaches a voltage rail. The photoresistor is analog, the more light you give it or take from it, there will be a different rating however if that voltage level goes past a certain amount in an integrated circuit it will either go high or low which will allow them to use it as a digital switch. He uses a photoresistor because it works well with individual light. After he gets a laser he hooks it up to NOT logic gate. The NOT gate has a voltage at which it will switch from 0 to 1. Knowing this value allows them to dial in their photoresistor circuit. The input and output are at different voltages allowing a 5V signal to be converted to a 1.8 V signal.  Felix lays out everything on a protoboard and sets up a VST MIDI music driver on the Edison to allow it to play music. He takes the GPIO signal and maps it to a virtual MIDI device. He reconfigures the kernel and adds the virtual MIDI device to enable it. 12 notes per octave, chromatic scale (includes sharps and flats). The different lengths of harp strings create different notes. The top of the harp has 24 lasers for 24 notes which is two octaves. Ben builds the top half of the harp with all the emitters and lines them up.

Ben Heck's Intel Edison Laser Harp Part 1: Design