 Hey, hello everybody and welcome to the show. It's me John Park and this is show and tell So I am guest hosting tonight as PT and the more off doing some other fun stuff And there's not gonna be an ask an engineer tonight So this will be the show for tonight if you are interested in coming and showing and telling Either check our blog or head over to the discord That's at adafruit.it slash discord jump into the live broadcast chat channel And you will see a post there with a link and come on into our stream yard and show some stuff. We're gonna Probably we just have a few people so far lined up So we'll we'll probably get out of here fairly quick unless a whole bunch more people pile on so you're welcome to join in We usually try to keep this to a half hour. I think it'll be a lot shorter than that tonight And what else uh, I thankfully just I think Cross fingers and I don't curse this may have improved my internet situation from yesterday where I was having a lot of Buffering problems. So uh, if you're over in the chats, please let me know either in the youtube chat Or in the discord if you see or hear any problems, but otherwise I am gonna bring on our first guest And here comes Jay Hey Hello, how's it going Jay? Uh, pretty good. I've been working on a thing as you can see Um, I know a new year new robot me. Um, so I've been working on making a new version of my assi robot, you know the one from uh 2021 I haven't built another assi all last year. Last year. I was focusing on the fish and recognition stuff So I finally went back this year inside to redo assi. This is actually assi v 14 Which is still gonna be awareable. I'm still designing it to be awareable But I also wanted to be able to walk so I ended up doing Is um going through different ideas. I was going to do a whole bunch of you know Servos make a hexapop that makes it more heavier and after last super con of wearing my robot all three days I had a huge bruise on my shoulder. So I have learned from that mistake I will not be doing that again. So I want to be very much lighter So I ended up using the x spider design, which I I built a long time ago. I built one Um, that way I can like crawl on its own Um, I haven't got to test the crawling motion of it yet But I did get the head done recently and I'm controlling the head right now using my phone because I haven't hooked up to the Blue fruit system. Oh, that's great. Yeah, so I can do back and forth right now I'm going to have some more touch sensors involved using the circuit playground Um, but right now this is what I have now. I kind of like how it is right now I've been trying to make it look really perfect. So I've been sanding and shining everything so shiny Impolishing it. Um, I'm playing to a lot of videos this year and like some like fun Like creator type of teaching content with robots So I want to make sure my robot sidekick in the videos look good camera designing it Yeah, so I'm designing it to be really pretty early It's like design that way when it shows up on camera people like oh my god, that's so cool I'm like, yes my sidekick. Um, it probably even talks and stuff. Um But yeah, so far this is why I've gotten it's doing pretty good You know can't complain if the head rotates all three 180 degrees using motors and stuff Um buttons are here on the side. So I need to turn other things on and off Um But for an example because I built the first one When I was first starting to learn how to make stuff I followed the instructions and made one years ago like this is super super old But this is the design that I'm like using for it and the funny thing about this is I tested it This thing still works right? That's great. It's still just slowly crawls on the floor So I'm pretty much making a bigger version of this That could wear on my shoulder and I'm upgrading it to be an Aussie. So this is Aussie v 14 Which since 2021, you know, gotta bring my baby back and yeah, that's that's pretty much what I've been doing in the last A few weeks of just really nice. Yeah, great work. I'm making a few of them actually too That'll be all different control different ways that way I can have more Experimentation and also have other ways I can do some videos because as I've learned from watching A whole bunch of movies never build one because the starting robot will always break There are always two problems. So filled with you Excellent. Oh really cool. Thanks for bringing that on. I'm I'm impressed. It looks great and uh Not not just the functionality, but the fact that you sanded it for that long is is really amazing It's shining right. It's reflecting so well right now. I'm loving it Great. Good. Well, we look forward to seeing more bring it bring it back as you add features to it and work on it and uh We'll be we'll be happy to see it. All right. Take care. You too mentors Cool robot uh All right, so Next up, uh, we got Noe Hello, hello John. Yeah, so uh this week actually over the weekend Uh, I wanted to get uh, some pegboards and Ikea has a really nice Uh pegboard. Uh, let me bring on my screen here. Got that. So I got two of these. Um, they're called the scott scotties Scottish, I'm not sure exactly how to say it, but it's Ikea's version of pegboards And what I really like about it is that it uses metric system So the spacing between the holes are like Nice and even and I like metric because all my projects I designed them in metric Uh, so I thought it'd be fun to kind of 3d print a couple of different brackets Uh for my various projects and it's all modular and it's It's it's kind of a different way because you can see kind of how these slots are like staggered on the second row Uh, so it kind of gives you a little bit more flexibility than like the kind of the standard pegboards So I got this like One question I've got I've seen these and I Always wonder what's why do they do the sort of slots instead of holes? Like what what does that change about your because I've never used that kind so I'm curious what What about a pegboard changes in your life when you've got these slots? It's funny. Like I've never really used the standard pegboard. So I can't really say like, oh, this is better Together we can't figure this out. So yeah, someone who's used both needs to try that. Yeah, exactly, right? Um, but I I feel like it's going to be more modular because you have that ability to kind of shift your your uh, your brackets over Yeah, um, so I I I'm assuming that you have just more Options more variants and like how you want to have your brackets set up But what's really cool about it is that on the Thingiverse and printables Uh, the 3d printing community has just done like every type of adapter like lego adapters mason jar adapters Um, you could think about it like there there's probably an adapter and uh before j Uh, he actually has one too and he was showing how he has his tools laid out But one thing I wanted to do is because I have two of them The spacing between the middle is like not really usable So I printed out I designed like this kind of modular Bracket where I have these two bits and I just have some screws here and then I have the slots here Um, that will allow me to kind of hook this on the middle So you put that there bring it down and now I can have one of these These are kind of the standard hooks that Ikea has so now I can put this in the middle And fill the gap. Oh, that's great. Yeah, and I can fill the gap and maybe I got myself a little little pocket operator And I can hang it up there So if you ever run out of pegboard space for your product pick of the weeks, maybe check out the the status Maybe that'll be yeah, that was a new new way to do it. I like that It comes in different colors. You could also spray paint it if you like I think it's uh, and mdf right like the high density particle board Um, so I guess you could cut it but you could also 3d print one if you want to if you have a big enough bed You could probably just print print print a little one Um, but yeah, definitely check out. Um, if you're into Ikea stuff check out their pegboards. They're pretty cool Yeah, and uh, you can 3d print all sorts of different adapters and things So, uh, that's what I'm kind of playing with over the weekend really cool, uh I wonder if you could backlight the whole thing too with like some Ooh Yeah, there's definitely enough space Yeah, there's definitely enough space Totally. Yeah, and it comes with these little uh twisty bits that have like these little offset So, yeah, there's definitely enough room in the back there to light it up Cool Really cool. Yeah, I did use that up. Thanks for sharing that and uh Are you sharing that design for your gap filler up on the uh, um, I should I haven't yet We'll see that and we'll be like wait a second. Yeah, right cool. Yeah, I'll definitely share that then Nicely done really neat. I love it. Cool. Thanks All right, take care. Bye. All right All right, headboard envy. Uh next up. We've got liz Hello, Liz and a lot of stuff So many servos, uh, so I've started prototyping a new project. Uh, it's going to be Let me switch up my camera a little bit um It's going to be a liar, which is like kind of a mini heart. Um, and basically I'm going to use some servos to pluck the strings, uh, but before I get there, you know, you got to do some quick prototyping with the code So right now I have code that is responding to midi note-on messages and it has the the midi notes coming in and then the servos are just being sent to a random angle so when I press the keys They're just all going that great But they're pretty snappy. So I think Um, it's going to be good for playing the heart. Um So that that was like the one thing I was worried about was that maybe it wouldn't be as snappy, but um until then there's like a new genre of glitch music you can do with this Yeah, for sure. I wonder, uh If you can send, um Different speeds to them if you want to just use it as a musical instrument like I was wondering like Yeah, I'm thinking maybe like a side like maybe piece of code I'll include if you just want to control some servos like maybe like the length of time you hold down the note affect the angle and so it seems like for for your liar the um, I've never Looked at what yes people use for plucking. Um, yeah Have you looked into or designed something or tried out like how does this servo interface with the string? So I Yesterday it was doing some very basic testing where I was I was finding like a nice kind of sharp angle. Um, and it was like I was finding like 65 to 95 degrees was like hitting it nicely and I was holding up to the string and like that was like plucking Nicely and so I think I'm going to be have to the 3d print like a longer Horn to um pluck it, but it was Getting it at a nice angle And so then I think the the hardest thing will be like figuring out like how to measure over strings I think I will end up doing like kind of a tabletop thing and having them go across that way I think yeah easiest, um, and then go from there. Have you looked at the um T slot aluminum that we have yes, you've maybe you've used that in some of your some of your projects the robot xylophone actually Yeah, okay. I thought yeah that rung a bell So that that's definitely something I have a rule that or acrylic could also be an option Um, so something like that. Um, always tricky when you have a lot of things. They have to mount in a very specific Yes, yeah You've got a lot of very finicky precise And and when you pluck will you Pluck in one direction and then when you pluck the next time on that same note, would it come swinging back this way? Yes, yeah, so there's going to be logic in the code to handle that Oh so Yeah, so Thanks, so early stages right now, but um, I'm excited about it I've done like some a couple percussive robot instruments with midi, but I've never done String so yeah, this is kind of the the next step Yeah, it's really cool. What a cool challenge. Um, yeah, and I suppose you could you could Move some of that thinking over to one of your guitars or another stringed instrument with Yes, yeah There have been a couple folks that have done some really cool guitar robotics I know I think it's steven trebinowski. He he does like a whole like metal Band with it. So that was that was really cool. See so that's great. Yeah Cool project. Can you play your your squiddy little servos for us one more time? Yes, of course Living thing I know. Yeah, again may have gone a little too far. Cool way to puppeteer. Yeah And uh, what are you driving that with that's what oh, yeah, so that's the pca 9 6 8 5 And it communicates over i-squared c it's not stemmified, but I actually just soldered A stem of cable to it so I could plug it into the arc of 2040 and then takes external power So I've got a five-volt ten amp the big power supply just to be on the safe side So don't worry about it. Um just in there. So Yeah, and then there's header pins. You can just plug the servos directly onto it, which is nice so Yeah, and you probably have like a lot of Polyphony where you can have a bunch of servos going at the same time so it could draw a decent bit of current, right? It could. Yeah, like I can Yeah 16 all the ones you have 16 string polyphony. That's really impressive Yeah, cool a really cool project. Thanks for sharing that. We're so looking forward to seeing How this progresses as you're building it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Have a good night Thanks. All right, and next up we have America's sweetheart Todd Kurt. Hey Todd America's sweetheart My spirit. I love the best How's it going Todd? Hey, pretty good. So one of the things that uh, we all love the mic the macro pad for made of fruit that I'm sure you've all seen Um, but this Is something I've been working on it's a um turns your macro pad into a standalone midi synth This case is turning circa python and a little drum machine Oh, nice. Where the where the the macro pad itself is actually is actually playing out the samples of the drums And so it's got a little sequencer built in You can change. Oops Oh, sorry, this is backwards Upside down and crash. Yep. There we go But uh So yeah, totally standalone. This has been driven off of a little, you know battery pack. Um This is what the board looks like. Oh, yes. So it's like, how does this work? Well, it turns out there is a little board That is now living off of the Stemic ut connector. Normally Stemic ut is for i2c devices. I'm sort of abusing it for doing audio out and midi in and um And so this is what the board looks like. This is the back of the board has a little space theme Um front of the board and the cool thing is I got a bunch Made and these will be in finally. I'm going to have a tendy store and so this will be up on the tendy Oh, that's great news Really cool So, yeah, so that's the uh, that's the that's the news. Uh, so far I'll should I should have some other things up in that tendy store as well So maybe the little midi synthy things that I've done over the years. So great. That's that's excellent I look forward to getting one of those. Uh, so to to back up a second the macro pad um, normally we do stuff like send Key presses to a computer or midi messages to a synthesizer. But what you've done is made a Uh on board audio interface and midi interface and you're actually doing the sample playback or synthesis right on the macro pad Exactly. Yeah, I've got some Arduino sketches that does audio synthesis as well So this becomes a little synthesizer or the keys like adjust synth parameters and stuff and uh, one of the other sketches I have um In circuit python sort of lets you remix a song in in live by using the the keys of sort of like like faders basically Oh, nice. Yeah, yeah So so yeah, so so this is all up on github right now if you want to play with it right now You can you can have it play through the little speaker that's built into the macro pad But you can't do normal midi in you can only do usb midi in but now you can do usb midi in via One of these things, you know, this is a standard tier s midi Uh cable that you see is that this would plug in just like this And now you've got midi and stand alone audio out Oh, so someone could grab a classic midi keyboard And use that to play the sample player On there exactly on the board and you're so you've got uh on the the board if you can show that again that you've uh That you've built that you're going to be selling that has Your mini jacks that can be used for audio and midi and then I guess uh Is it a optical isolator for the yeah, exactly. It's a standard opto isolator for midi input and then um the uh Raspberry Pi pico official pwm filter circuit for the audio output Great. Okay. Yes. So someone had asked in the in the chat about what was on there. So you're getting a nicer cleaner headphone out using resistors and capacitors and then That chip It's it's not headphone out exactly. It's line out but line out. Okay. So but uh, but yeah, it's um It's pretty good. I mean, it's it's recommended by or by raspberry pi foundation Which you know for for pwm audio is kind of like compared to stuff you get from a proper DAC, but uh, but it's good enough for the sort of 8 bit You know super nintendo style sounds that most people want to make nowadays Heck yeah Why is there some other type of sound that exists exactly exactly? Really cool. Thanks tot and if people want to find that uh, or stock your tinder before tindi not tender Watch it That's released even uh, what's the uh, what are they looking for when they search it's called macropad synth plug And i'll put a link to the github for it. Um, it's all fully open source hardware But i'll put a link to the github in the chat once i'm off of this Awesome great. All right. We'll play us out because that is it for uh for the show And thanks everyone for stopping by uh, thanks to uh, everyone who came on to show projects Thanks for hanging out in our chats We'll all be around for a little bit longer to answer questions. Uh, I saw some people talking up their Love of the ikea pegboard and and reasons for the plots that seem good. It's going to Check out all that info Uh, thanks everyone. There will not be an ask an engineer tonight. Uh, so come on by tomorrow I'll be doing workshop show I think we'll have a deep time with tim on friday and more so Head on over to all the ate a fruit channels to see all the good data for this Uh, thanks tod and thanks to everyone Ready for industries. I'm john park. I will see you next time. Bye. Bye