First Attempts At Hacking...

Earlier this week I gave circuit bending a crack for the first time. I only had a few jumper cables and a soldering iron so couldn't do things like attach switches etc. I was just trying to familiarise myself with opening toys, and looking around circuit boards.

The first toy I tried is pictured below. I didn't get very far; i connected two points on the board that caused the sound AND lights to die, and it wouldn't come back on, even after turning it off, changing batteries etc.  Very annoying - I thought that wasn't supposed to happen! I wasn't using a soldering iron or anything. Ah well, BALL-E as he's now known died a premature death :-/

BALL-E : 2010 - 2011

I moved through a few other devices, only really managing to adjust pitch by using body contact. Couldn't find anything interesting... though the toy collection I currently have is a tad undernourished. I managed to make a really old talking phone do this:

Circuit-Bent Toy Phone - Looping/Pitch Bend

Apologies for the crummy vid quality. I figured out how to loop a sample by connecting to points. I did not solder these together, just made loops in the ends of the cables so they could hang round each other hence stay in contact. I have some hi-res pics but cannot upload them just yet. By rubbing my thumb on one part it changed the pitch. Got some really interesting low tones out of this which I imagine could soon pretty decent when output through loudspeakers via a 1/4" jack connection. 

I also started prodding around my mini Yamaha PortaSound organ and this is looking far more promising. I've found some cool things such as adding distortion (and other strange noises) and merging beats on the drum machine.

Opened Yamaha PortaSound

I've ordered a bunch of components from an electronics website. Hopefully I get the stuff early next week so I can make something to bring to our next meeting -- I think on Wednesday.

Jordan