Lunettas in the classroom

[revtor]

Hey guys I'm throwing the idea around of using Lunettas as a project in my HighSchool Technology classroom around March/April. It would be the electronics component for the students in my level 2 Innovations and Inventions class. Fortunately this year I have only 8 in this particular group and they are good students who love to experiment and have fun, I think it would be a great group to try this out on.

So I'm wading through hundreds of ideas and schematics, my basic thought is to have then all start at the same place (OSC's and a mixer), throw a 4017 in there as "level two", to get them all comfortable with the basic idea and working processes. I was then thinking of letting them each go in a particular direction -drumkit, bass, strings, chords, sequencers, effects, main mixer… etc etc. With the end goal of them each creating a unique "voice", which we would then use to compose a track or two on their laptops/Garageband.

So I'd love to hear any and all ideas as to how you think the progression would go..
If they each got a breadboard how would you start them out?
What would be a math component I could bring into the mix?
Science component?
What IC's would you make sure to stock?
They all know how to solder and are familiar with the use of a breadboard.


Whaddya think?

~Steve

[commathe]

Awesome idea! I'm jealous of these kids. I wrote a few articles aimed at beginners that you are free to cannibalize. The one on the 40106 oscillator and the op-amp mixer will probably be the most use to you.

castlerocktronics.com

I'd start with the 40106 oscillator. Just make one oscillator with a pot and a cap. Then you could explain about how increasing the resistance slows down the speed at which the capacitor can charge and discharge, which makes the pitch sound lower.

[DUBmatze]

http://www.beavisaudio.com/Projects/CMOS_Synthesizers/

is a cool place to start the studies....

[PHOBoS]

I'd go with something that has in and outputs for digital signals so several
circuits can be combined with eachother for extra fun and expansion later on.
Even if it's just an oscillator I would add a gate input. (CD4093 works nice)

different mixing methods (resistors/diodes/logic gates) might be fun to experiment with too.

http://milkcrate.com.au/_other/sea-moss/ has some simple circuits that might be interesting.

[revtor]

CastleRock and Beavisaudio - yes I have definitely been through your sites and have snagged some ideas from there. Castle, thanks for the invite to use your material -I'll need a few worksheets etc and your pages will make a great starting point of those things.

PHObos, yes yes I need to have them be able to mix their circuits (fun) and then listen to/see (oscilloscope) the results (learning) -so thanks for mentioning this I'll look into the 4093. Also different mixing methods, we'll start simple and then maybe move up a bit to opamps for a final mixer. (We've got tubes of 741's)


After we get through the oscillator, I'm thinking if every student (or group of two) made a voice plus a sequencer (4017) that was divided down (4040 or 4024) we could really tailor these and then bring them together in some sort of semi-coherent track. I could set up a master clock and a mixer for these to feed off of / into and then viola.


More ideas/planning to come I'll keep the thread updated!
~Steve

[fluxmonkey]

i've done several workshops w/ a very similar model: http://fluxplayshop.blogspot.com/

b

[revtor]

Thanks for the writeup B, I look forward to reading it. Any tips off the top of your head? Pitfalls?

[SC]

Hardware Hacking by Nicolas Collins might be of interest to some of your students?
http://www.nicolascollins.com/texts/originalhackingmanual.pdf

Logic Noise by Elliot Williams at Hackaday.Com
http://hackaday.com/tag/logic-noise/

@revtor: How did your Lunetta class go over?

(^_^)
SC

[revtor]

Well, I gathered a bunch 'o schemes and have a cabinet worth of parts for the project but it didn't happen. My supervisor gave me a pet project of his to run and it took the space of this one I had planned

Next year though I have to teach two programming/Arduino classes and I think that will be a great place to try out parts of the Lunetta ideas I had.

stay tuned!

~Steve

[revtor]

B U M P !!

Its midterm time again where I have a lot of idle time (watching students take exams) to put ideas together for projects. Lunar Synth project will hopefully blast off this year!
Electronics / CAD / Manufacturing / A fun take-home at the end.

Going to gather my ideas once again (Lost all the schemes / diagrams I had gathered last year) and hopefully get this off the ground. This year, the class is 13 students - a perfect number for this type of thing.

Simple circuits that work together prototyped on breadboard, then a CAD component (pcb layout) then we can get the boards made (dirty PCB's), then a week of "soldering factory", and everyone goes home with a crazy synth... ambitious, but you gotta aim high!

~Steve

[revtor]

It's happening, finally. Tomorrow we begin.

Going for more of a rough first run, and since we're virtual there will be undoubtedly less soldering. It's going to be Tinkercad for learning & "building", then into Eagle for schem. capture and pcb layout. WIll be fun to design a format for these, I will be running the project with the studentss from a "product design" angle.
Hopefully there will be time to actually order boards and solder but only the virus can control that.

Will at least allow me to solidify my approach for future classes.!

1-Electronics/components review.
2-Signals discussion
3-Circuits progression:
DC -- Digital Logic -- AC audio -- Analog

"Techno Machine" breakdown:
1-Generators - osc's, clocks, and drums 40106, 4093. TwinT bass / XOR cymbals.
2-Controllers - sequencers dividers, shift registers. 4017, 4040, 4015
3-Playing - filter mix pan.

Essentially following the Hackaday "Loigic-Noise" Progression


~Steve