Arduino Workshop with Gijs Gieskes @ DIEM

So this week on DIEM we had a visit from Gijs Giekses who's an expert in circuit bending, reverse engineering, DIY electronics / syntheseizers and arduino programming. (check his website!)
It was quite introductionary but even though I have some experience with the Arduino it was still nice to be with all the master students at DIEM and Gijs, and to see how they put the microcontroller to use.

Gijs had bought a large box with goodies for the workshop with different types of arduino boards from the tiny Nano boards to some Arduino Megas; there were ultrasonic range-finders, servo motors and all sorts of components for the lots to use.

My good friends from Dimsos were invited to join the workshop as it's very much up their alley. Carl is having arduino-programming as one of his main focuses and I can't wait to show you what we've been up to since august, he and I! It was very nice having them over for the workshop, it was like a giant geeky family!

Gijs introducing the Arduino.

Mads trying out the Nano-board.

The guys from Dimsos visiting.

A couple of days into the workshop and the room was vibrating with code syntax and bleepy noises. Some used the arduino as a composition platform, coding tones and noises from several digital outputs with the ability to make changes in the rythms and patterns with buttons and potentiometers, one guy made and actual synth with the board based on the Auduino library. Some interfaced sensors with Max/MSP and Ableton Live, another guy made a MIDI clock sync box for his hardware. It was just nice seeing the creativity catalysed by the virgin encounter with the arduino. :)

As I had a concert coming up where I was asked to perform with my "Floppy Drive Samplers" I wanted to take the first steps at making the arduino talk to the pins on the FDD. So I had help from Carl The Codemeister and we managed to get a rotary encoder to control the step and direction on the stepper motor. In have future plans about having different patterns and sequences on the atmega-chip to control the stepper motor. (dedicated post to come when the project is finished!)

Bringing my Floppy Disk Drive.

Carl getting data from rotary encoder

Arduino + FDD

On the last day we brought our more intermediate project - an arudino audio player/sampler based on Adafruits WaveShield with 16 step sequencer and display + lots of functions! Still a prototype but soon to be finished! Here's a little shot where we test it with the other workshop contestants (samples on the card are old Amiga soundtracker samples, and 'the amiga' doesn't feel shy to tell you that it's taken over the device :