Drumset Keyboard
I turned a kid's drumset toy into a computer keyboard. I like making stupid keyboards.
1/1/2020, 6:14:39 PM
Should I pull a @Foone and turn this toy drumset into a Terrible Input Keyboard Device™ ?
1/9/2020, 6:19:31 PM
Extremely early tease of Terrible Input Device Drumset Keyboard™ — more this weekend (I hope) /cc @Foone
1/13/2020, 4:54:30 PM
Join me on an absurd journey to turn this VTech KidiBeats drum set into a keyboard.... a computer keyboard!!
1/13/2020, 4:55:57 PM
Let’s crack it open and take a look inside. Small main board, lots of wires going to the drums/cymbal. Runs on 3 AA 1.5V batteries.
1/13/2020, 4:58:24 PM
Unscrewing mainboard show a bunch of smd parts and blobbed chip (BOOOOO). I want to power it from USB, and I figure giving it 5V probably won’t hurt it... and it works!
1/13/2020, 5:02:13 PM
Hooking up multimeter to one of the drum keys to see if it goes high or low on contact (it goes high.. other lead was connected to VDD).
1/13/2020, 5:04:08 PM
Looking inside one of the drums. A couple smaller boards to determine a drum hit from the conductive pads on the drumhead
1/13/2020, 5:06:42 PM
Testing out intercepting the drum hits and powering it all from the Arduino Micro
1/13/2020, 5:10:45 PM
Hooking up all the wires from the main board to the Arduino and placing it in the body with a nice new hole for plugging in the USB cable.
1/13/2020, 5:14:20 PM
aaaand TADA!!! Now you can have a sweet drum solo while you type on your computer. ASCII codes for letters, some cymbal smashing for punctuation, and a rimshot for Enter. A Terrible Keyboard™ /tagging @Foone for judgement
1/18/2020, 7:29:08 PM
aaaaand TADA again!! This time it’s a MIDI drum set to lay down sick beats (e.g in GarageBand) 🥁🎹🎶🎵