Category Archives: Uncategorized

Full Size Potato Battery

Here is the full size potato battery. It is made from a plank of oak, with a plate of zinc and a plate of copper screwed to it. The metal plates have dimensions 80mm x 1000mm, and were chosen so … Continue reading

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Smell Box Ver 1 Test

We took the three smell boxes to MERL to test them with the group from Reading College. They had already used littleBits in two prior workshops, so were acquainted with them and had some idea of what they should do … Continue reading

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Smell Box Version 1

The ‘smell box’ has finally arrived! It is based upon the same container as the prototype (so currently a bit large), and uses the same low power PC blower to move the air around. A 4N35 opto-isolator is used to … Continue reading

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Extending the Sound Box further

The Sound Box has had another update, and now includes an external speaker socket. this means that it can be plugged into an external amplifier/speaker or some other output device that can handle the analog signal. The image below shows … Continue reading

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Potato Battery

For one of the forthcoming workshop at MERL, we might explore how potatoes can produce energy using a setup similar to this, and demonstrate that you can do more with a potato than boil it, mash it or make chips … Continue reading

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Extending Sound Box Capability

The (temporary) sound boxes have been updated so that they can be triggered via littleBits circuits. Each box now has two littleBits connectors at one end – one for input, and one for output. They have been tested using a … Continue reading

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“Big” redesign

As the large playback-only soundboxes worked fine at MERL, and the small size of the last version made it very difficult to get all the components in, the sound recorder has been scaled up. The speaker on the last version … Continue reading

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MERL Pilot Workshop Kit

The pilot workshop at MERL was based upon two main activities, both relating to sound. The first activity involved looking for objects around the museum that could have produced specific sounds that we provided on custom-built sound players (which we … Continue reading

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Testing Session at MERL

Ahead of the Autumn workshops planned with Reading College, Kate, Nick and I have planned a session with a group from Mencap Reading to test out some ideas and Nick and Craigs new sound storing boxes (to be revealed!). Here … Continue reading

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Demos of Prototypes Smell Box and Sound Collection Modules

Nic showed us unit that could trigger smells which connects to Littlebits triggers. The box contained a strawberry its smell wafted by a fan, Nic has developed the box to be used with the Littlebits kit to diffuse various smells. … Continue reading

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