by random_moonwalk
12 subcomments
- Thanks for all the kind words and feedback. There are some comments expressing interest in supporting a Kickstarter etc. If you're interested in receiving updates you can leave your email here:
https://tally.so/r/Y55dXv
Thanks again - this was a bit of a surprise!
- Looks amazing! Reminds me of a funny reddit thread about a man who built a fiber optic star ceiling for his daughter. The top comment was "First child?". :)
https://www.reddit.com/r/DIY/comments/8g8pce/fiberoptic_star...
- > A 3D-printed enclosure is fine for a prototype, but a real product likely needs injection-molded parts, which require expensive tooling.
For kid-friendly toys, yes. But for older users not necessarily:
https://teenage.engineering/products/po
by rock_artist
2 subcomments
- What I love about this is how physical it is.
So yeah, there's some board running DSP. but the design is amazing.
It really relates to some recent posts also in HN about many objects loosing their physical UX. from an age of having buttons and tactical interfaces, everything became more touch based / app based which indeed cut price and allows easier updating. but also lacks some romance which is exactly what this device shows.
by thomasqbrady
1 subcomments
- This is phenomenal, but my biggest question is (which is probably a more of a long-term one that comes from genuine curiosity/fascination, not doubt): does she use it/enjoy it? I'm so curious to see what happens over time. Does she learn the functions of these buttons, years before having words for what they're doing? Does she write some music? Does she grow up expecting things with knobs to be this interactive/creative? SO cool!
- Amazing the things we do for our little ones. I built a toddler-friendly keyboard for my son. He's still playing some form of piano 6 years later, no longer with his fists or feet.
https://blog.afandian.com/2019/09/ux-for-toddlers/
- It's not kid friendly, but in case anybody's interested I just wrote up how I made a simple "hardware" synth by bodging together a Raspberry Pi Pico 2 and I2S audio module, total cost around £10 on Amazon UK.
The hardware's very cheap and easy. The "default" synthesis is pretty simple but also pretty hackable (in Rust) if you want to customize it.
https://github.com/Joeboy/oxynth/
by giancarlostoro
1 subcomments
- Would love something like this for my daughter, but with a max volume option she can't tamper with LOL
- I've been learning CAD, 3d printing, PCB design and brushing up on my embedded programming... all with the goal of being able to build toys for/with my son. It's incredible how accessible it is in todays world, made possible by these advancements:
- incredibly powerful and cheap microprocessors (esp-32)
- Fast, high precision desktop 3d printers
- Affordable small batch PCB manufacturing
- LLM's to advise on circuit design and help with embedded programming
Would you have any interest selling a non-comm license to the PCB, f3d files and source code? My 1.5yo son would absolutely love this!
by Waterluvian
7 subcomments
- If I have zero experience designing PCBs but wanted to do a similarly (non)-complex one, how much of a tall order would that be? In my completely made-up mental model, I'm guessing I just take the parts I've already breadboarded, look them up in some sidebar, and drag and drop them around, snapping to nice clean spacing, and then connect all the various pins together and have it automatically organize things? We're not going for perfect here. Just "Baby's first PCB" that at least works.
And then when I have one designed, how much would it cost to get made and sent to me if I was okay if it took a month?
But most importantly: how do I build personal confidence that I'm not shipping a potato off to be printed? Is there a community I could ask for a review from?
- Oof, nice one !
I was looking for some synths for my less-than-two-years kid, after seeing their face light up when I fiddle with my Lofi 12 XT in front of them.
I had all these criterias :
-Something without any screens
-Something simple enough
-Something that could withstand some rough play
I looked and looked, was considering proper Aira Compact synths, but ended up with the antiquity of the Bliptronic 5000 from Thinkgeek.
https://youtu.be/6rCfhF-fNb4
They love it, the buttons are beyond fun to them, but the knobs are quite hard to turn for a little kid (1st world problem, I know)
I felt they were too young for a Blipbox, and I also bought an Orba 2, we'll see how that one goes.
But I dreamed of such a device, with easy to turn knobs, and colorful display, something simple to modulate sounds and just hear melodies. Seeing how you created it is both inspiring and discouraging, as someone with limited free time and electrical knowledge, but, you never know !
- What an awesome project. It looks fabulous!
Reminds me of the Dato Duo I have.
The "Dato Duo" is also a synth aimed at kids. It allows 2 kids to play together. it is made by a Dutch company called Dato (https://dato.mu). Their latest musical invention the "Dato Drum" had a successful Kickstarter and is shipping now. This drum machine allows even more kids to play together.
PS: As the owner of a Dato Duo I can share you a little secret: it's also fun for adults :)
by BigTTYGothGF
2 subcomments
- The traditional approach is you give noisemaking toys to your niblings, not your own children.
- This is absolutely FANTASTIC, and I am humbled by your mad skillz!
My son and I are also fascinated by the sweet, sweet synth sound, but as I have no discernible talent, we went this route:
https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/Nts1Mk2--korg-nutekt...
Which, unfortunately, has a HUGE learning curve in terms of operation.
by chaosprint
0 subcomment
- Great finish. I was busy designing and soldering the prototype synthesizer during the summer, but I had to put it on hold because my baby was born in September.
I had the same problem back then: injection molding is quite expensive to start. But you could consider a more creative approach: using a PCB directly as the panel, such as a TE's Pocket Operator. Korg also has this solution for some educational products. Alternatively, you could use 3D printing; there are many inexpensive services in China. CNC doesn't have the mold-making issue, but it's more expensive and doesn't seem suitable for children.
Another interesting point: after my child was born, I didn't have much time for my sound work. But recently, I was surprised to find that I spend most of my time playing white noise on Glicol (http://glicol.org/) and it works great for my kid.
```
o: noise 42 >> lpf ~mod 1 >> mul ~mod3
~mod: sin ~mod2 >> mul 200 >> add 1000
~mod2: sin 0.1 >> mul 0.04 >> add 0.1
~mod3: sin 0.04 >> mul 0.3 >> add 0.8
```
Good luck with kickstarter!
- We have similar interests! I've been working on a DIY animatronic project that is mostly vibe-coded using Sonnet 4.5. It's my first electronics project. So far, I got the Ultrasonic Sensor to trigger led when object is less than 2 feet away. I set up a sound player and the components fried when I started the device. I have to redo all of the wiring for the sound setup again. I only have one of three sound modules that isn't bricked.
The comments in this thread reveal a community of parents who are aspiring builders of high tech devices for their children. I think this community need a discord.
- Putting aside the beauty of both the synth and its purpose, what I'm curious about is the learning process in making this. The running theme is that you picked up several new skills 'from cold'. That in itself is impressive enough. How did you approach learning:
- the necessary basic electronics;
- PCB design;
- 3D CAD;
- your particular iterative process,
among other things? I get the impression you built things incrementally, observed what happens and learnt via that feedback loop? Maybe others could share their own feedback loops, too.
- I want to commend you for making this actually musical. Too often these basic synths aimed at kids are little more than a noise maker unless you really know what you are doing.
My spouse and I are into music and we are pretty serious choristers. We have our first little one on the way this December, and we definitely want to expose them to making music from a very young age. Your synth looks like an excellent way to do that, as it does not seem possible to get it in a state where it's just making horrible noises, every state will be some new pleasant little jingle.
Bravo!
- Hmm, very cool project and maybe just the inspiration I need.
I bought a Baby Einstein Magic Touch Guitar for a friend’s daughter a couple of years ago, and while it was okay as a toy, it was disappointing as a musical instrument because the chords it plays are badly chosen. It’s basically impossible to play along with most songs.
I’ve had the back burnered idea to buy another and improve it; maybe I will now, following a variation on your approach.
- There's a lot of talent on display here. For someone who has never done any of this I'm so impressed with the degree of finish and care as well as the functionality of the device. It even sounds pleasant. Dad of the year award!
- As a EE nerd, I love this project.
As a parent, it's the sort of toy I want to smash as the repetition drives me insane.
What should I make that captures the awesomeness of this project without the insanity? Hmm...
- Reminds me of the work of Love Hultén: https://www.lovehulten.com
He builds beautiful, colorful, retro-futuristic audio-visual art pieces Many are synths.
- Looks like a fun project. I can highly recommend Teensy Audio Library for audio projects:
https://www.pjrc.com/teensy/td_libs_Audio.html
- Cool! Reminds of the Music From Outer Space synth in which the designer makes the claim that it "can actually get a child away from a television" and includes a video to prove it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6M_KrZByz4
MFOS Weird Sound Generator
https://musicfromouterspace.com/index.php?CATPARTNO=WSG001&P...
- This is awesome. I had vibecoded something similar called https://chippytune.com for myself. Still working on wav support though
- There's a fun podcast by Arman Bohn/Distropolis (who himself has made some cool small-batch hardware synths) where he interviews makers of small hardware synths, https://open.spotify.com/show/30USGHPeGQ9ZyWQDyRnfcv might be of interest.
- Were you aware of the Dato Duo (https://dato.mu/)? It's very cool for kids, except for the fairly steep price point.
The advantage is that it's limited, so it greatly reduces the wall of difficulty to manage to get some 'nice-sounding' music (mostly the restriction to the pentatonic scale). However, kids still manage to find the most horrible-sounding settings, and insist on keeping them as is...
by eat_your_potato
0 subcomment
- Reminds me of the concept of the Data DUO, very inspiring
- that's great! may your daughter make great use of it!
love the fact that your step sequencer even has a display to tell you what note you are adjusting to and from. i've always found that tuning synths and sequencers both analog and digital can be a pain because you can forget the note (or you don't have a good set of ears or perfect pitch) even if the result sounds good.
- Wow! Looks great and very inspiring. Great idea to make separate components that can be connected - something like a drum machine, sequencer, maybe even a chord synthesizer? It can be constrained such that you are always diatonic, you could have a mode knob too.
Jamming with other people can be a life changing experience, and to do that as a child would be a great privilege to have.
- What a beautiful and charming project. Kudos for taking it all the way from zero to one with such a polished design. That's no small feat. I've built prototypes for eurorack and even with some simplifying constraints it's a lot of work.
Best of luck with your Kickstarter!
by greasegum
1 subcomments
- This is an inspiring project! I would love to see more stuff like this and updates if you decide to evolve the project further.
by endorphine
0 subcomment
- Where would you suggest someone starts for building something like this.
What kind of hardware would you suggest (preferably something with Rust!bindings). Is the one used in the original post a good starting point?
I've minimal to no experience with embedded.
- This is great. I’m going to start making something like this, but with some cut apple wood knobs, for my birds.
by thenthenthen
1 subcomments
- Looks so nice! The sam is a midi synth chip right? Super cool. How/where did you get the knobs?
- I was too fascinated by the different thumb nail lengths to concentrate much on the video.
- Ahh, this made me think of "Dato DUO", similar concept (though the Dato stuff is a little more complex): https://dato.mu/
by dazamarquez
0 subcomment
- Is the plastic and other materials you used safe for children?
by dinobones
2 subcomments
- This is such a good idea!
Kids music toys are often just purely toys tap a button, make a sound... But the skill ceiling could be so much higher, offering the ability to learn and express themselves more. Awesome work.
- This is fantastic, as a hardware synth lover and a dad you’re making me pretty jealous.
- Your daughter is so lucky! I meaning the physical UX is very reminiscent of teenage engineering, looks great!
The more I was scrolling down the article the more I hoped for an « order » button :)
by helsontaveras18
0 subcomment
- Wow, what an amazing demo for such a simple synth. Great work! If you ever start a Kickstarter, I’d be happy to donate. If it inspires some kid out there to get into music production, it’s a win for me :)
- This is great. I did a similar thing when my kids were young (revived an old, dead Kawai synth with a Raspberry Pi and sound fonts), but doing it with semi-discrete circuits seems a lot more fun.
- Just Amazing !
- Very cool. Reminds me of things like the Blipbox myTRACKS and the CHOMPI.
by fiatpandas
1 subcomments
- Regarding case material for productizing, you could consider a combination of plywood and bent sheet metal, eg like a Moog. Also check out dato.mu for a few examples of kid proof synth enclosures.
- Makes me wonder what the difference, in definition, is between a sequencer and a synthesizer? Is this really a synthesizer, or is it really a sequencer?
Yes, I'm splitting hairs about semantics.
- Kinda funny but my adult son has taken an interest in guitars and keyboard and that has me working on MIDI routers with AVR-8 and building an ESP32 based synth module.
by jeremydavid
0 subcomment
- Wow! Very cool. How hard would it be to create a "custom" sound, where you use the sliders to adjust the Attack Decay Sustain and Release?
by tanepiper
5 subcomments
- I'm a 44 year old man and I would love this - for years I've tried to dabble with music with much lack of success - but this looks really fun to play with. Great job.
- As someone who has never 3d printed anything, I'm surprised by how clean the case looks as opposed to what we usually see. Why is it so smooth?
- This is awesome. Just awesome. Love that it looks like a baby toy and packs enough punch to get a kid about 20 years up the line of music understanding.
by michaelhoney
0 subcomment
- So impressed by this, from someone with no prior experience. A1 hacker news experience, congrats
by evereverever
0 subcomment
- Amazing! Kids need more synths! My kids play the blip blop and the critter & guitari synth.
- It's beautiful and the demo video shows how someone with music background can make even such a limited tool sound so amazing.
- Totally rad! Makes me think about what kind of simple programming could be possible with a minimal HCI like this.
- Great work! This brings back memories of futzing with knobs on a boombox as a kid.
For your sake, I hope you built a heaphone jack.
- I'm not a kid. I still want it !
- What an incredible idea, I with every nursery to school had some of these!
by phplovesong
0 subcomment
- As a father to a daughter this warms my heart. Well done daddy! Points to you!
- Well done. This is really inspiring.
- Really cool project, super polished. The panda animation!
by RobertWesner
0 subcomment
- I can't put into words how awesome this is. Perfect demo.
- This is great, i’d kickstart it, my 5 year old would love it.
by Bengalilol
0 subcomment
- I love the atmosphere, the object and the purpose.
- My mind jumped to synths from the Fallout games, so I was disappointed to find something else, but it's still pretty cool!
by warrenmiller
0 subcomment
- is it feasible to built one with a PCB? just straight to the UNO like your initial prototype - did that work ok?
- So cool, I think all kids would love this
by oldestofsports
0 subcomment
- This is very impressive, it looks great!
- The korg monotribe is magic for kids
by lovegrenoble
0 subcomment
- Absolutely, Kickstarter is a good idea
- My kids would love this.
- Dad of the year <3
- Wow looks professional
by yigalirani
0 subcomment
- build it at scale and make a fortune
by TurkishPoptart
1 subcomments
- Good lord, you must have an amazing wife/support system to give you some peace while you designed this amazing toy.
- The other day I came across a post on Facebook that was just some guy grousing that the new Teenage Engineering gadget looked like "a baby's activity center". And now we've come full circle: a baby's activity center that's actually not far off from Teenage Engineering kit.
by findthebug
0 subcomment
- love this!
- wow
by dude250711
1 subcomments
- Another good option for a child: https://www.eltamusic.com/solar-42
On a serious note: https://www.ericasynths.lv/shop/standalone-instruments-1/bul...
by doppelgunner
0 subcomment
- [dead]
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