Practicing a musical instrument takes a lot of time, preceded by the loss of a sizable pile of money. To parents, they can be a double edge sword as they can be expensive and loud but also a considerable skill and hobby to acquire if their child is truly interested. This is the case unless the parent is a tech-savvy engineer. In which case, the perfect solution has already been built for kids that want to practice the drums.

Ian Cole was able to make an electronic drum set using the "Drum Kit - Kit Ai" all included (DKKAI) from SpikenzieLabs and some misclanious hardware from IKEA and the corner-store. The Spikenzielabs drum machine is an ATMEGA168-based kit that includes piezoelectric sensors. These sensors can be placed on any makeshift drumhead. Using the SpikenzieLabs DKKAI Roadie, programming the sensors becomes even easier. This DKKAI Roadie is a daughterboard add on that allows the user to designated a MIDI output sound to each sensor and store it in the ATMEGA eeprom directly from the connected MIDI device.

Cole opted for using Tupperware from IKEA as the drums. He attached the Piezos on to aluminum plates, which were the placed under the lids of Tupperware containers. The PVC piping structure holds the drums in place, and it also doubles as electrical conduit for the wiring.

His son is now able to play quality electric drums with the use of a MIDI capable iPad and the Garage band software connected to an amp or headphone. Lets hear it for tech-savvy parents.

Everything you need to know about the SpikenzieLabs drum kit can be found after the link.

Cabe

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(Fez Spider dev board with peripherals and Gadgeteer logo via Microsoft)

Microsoft (MS) has just released a platform and toolkit so everyone can build simple electronics projects in a “matter of hours.” The Microsoft .Net Gadgeteer is a toolkit that allows people to build embedded projects using the .Net framework and C/C# Express in an open source environment. Source code and libraries are limited at the moment, but the concept for MS is to let the community expand on the archives. MS stated they will be involved in a very limited way, but they hope partners will help keep it going.

The first board for the Gadgeteer system is from GHI Electronics. The GHI Fez Spider starter kit is a GHI EMX Module with a handful of standardized sockets for different peripherals to plug right in. Going deeper, this Fez Spider starter kit houses a 32-bit 73Mhz ARM7 processor with 16MB ram and 4.5MB flash storage. The ports and features are similar to many ARM based dev kits. The peripheral options are quite extensive and complete, allowing for a lot of different projects right from the beginning. The board lets a user add multiple LCDs, touchscreens, joysticks, buttons, and removable memory jus t to name a few. A 3.3V and 5.0V power supply comes with the kit.

At the moment MS only has 2 projects, but they look useful and fun. One is a desktop arcade console for developing you own games. The other project is my personal favorite, a “flipbook maker,” or a mini animation platform. Both of which are housed in a simple Plexiglas cases.

The whole site placates to the hobbyist and dabber sort, with hand drawn graphics here and there, giving the feeling of being a designer. Note the robot shooting a cloud on the right. I like the idea of there being more options to the hobbyist aside from the popular Arduino world. I also like that the core processors is more powerful than the 8-bit Arduino lot. I can see this becoming popular, it just needs more from the community. It is wide open and looking for people to add to the dev fray.

Eavesdropper