I have been a bit busy lately at work so I did not work a lot on my different projects. But after a discussion with my sister who was complaining about  the fact that there was no “good” music based toy for her 18 months old child, I was wondering what I could do about it.

Wandering around, I discovered a few things like a “wall Piano” based on a PICAXE-08M2 microcontroller and an ultrasonic Range Finder (see here). But nothing really nice and fun for a very young child. I finally discovered a very very nice project : monome. Ok… a bit complex for a child and surely to expensive ! Looking for some monome clone, I finally stumbled upon Sugarcube Midi Controller. Small enough, nice illuminated buttons, some fun features using accellerometers…

But… it is a midi controller, meaning that it does not play music by itself but controls a midi player like a PC. So I need to make it more autonomous. So my next project is there : build an easy to use & fun sound box, based on Amanda Ghassaei‘s Sugarcube project with specific features like RGB leds, embedded MP3 player and MIDI player, and make it fun for a child !

Still thinking about it…