––––––
Final

I had a hard time picking a project because of my skill level, and I knew from my experience it would be hard to find a TA to help me if I hit any roadblocks. I decided to try to make a 555 function oscillator with 2 potentiometers, 1/8 mono jack, and an LDR. It was something I knew I could make by myself. Usually it's a beginner's project for people interested in analog synths. I was able to make one and I had intended to make a PCB of the protoboard but realized it was too simple and didn't fulfill the requirements. Maybe it was wishful thinking on my part.

The circuit on prefboard

It did work

Now, that I wasted a day on that project I decided to make Fabdurino synth with the mozzi library and several potentiometers.

I looked into a bunch of tutorials online but nothing was that straight forward. I ended up combining several tutorials together. I learned about breadboards and prototyping from my 555 project so I begain by prototyping the synth with a breadboard and an arduino. I decided to make a synth with 3 potentiometer and a 1/8 mono jack so it could be plugged in with other instruments or outputted into an amp.

I programmed the board using the Mozzi library, altering some code for different sound properties and so it could be controlled by the potentiometers.

It worked! Because this was digital I knew I could change the timbre, and harmonics, and rate of modulation rate. I thought maybe I could still make a device that could help induce ergotropic and trophortropic mental states.

After this I decided to make a Fabdurino. At some point I bumped into classmates working on their project and they had convinced me to design my own circuit with the Attiny44 and with their help I started to design an attiny circuit based off of Neil's boards from previous weeks. As I was doing this, more questions started to come up. Unfortunately, they were too busy to fully help me and could not find them. I had to abandon this path and go back to the Fabdurino.

The abandoned schematic

After several hours, I milled a Fabdurino.

I ended up designing a pressfit acrylic box with cutouts that was measured for the various inputs and outputs. I used the lasercutter for the farbication.

I had trouble bootloading the Fabdurino and with my lack of programming knowledge and lack of time I decided to use the arduino.I'm hoping to get it working with the fabdurino but also find someone to finally explain to me the concepts behind circuit design so I can design them.