In the Maker Shed: Wave Shield Kit

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By Michael Castor
Posted 2012/03/28 @ 8:00 am
Category Arduino, Electronics, General

The other day someone asked me how they could integrate audio their Arduino project. The answer was easy, I just told them to use the Wave Shield Kit that we sell in the Maker Shed! This shield is one of my favorites; It allows you to play back audio files stored on an SD card. Just build the kit, load up a card with .wav files, add a speaker, and use the wavehc library to trigger playback in your Arduino sketch. The possibilities are limitless! Here’s a quick demo:

I think I’m going to build a door bell using random animal sounds like that. It will drive my labradoodle wild!

BY Michael Castor

I am the Evangelist for the Maker Shed. It seems that there is no limit to my making interests. I'm a tinkerer at heart and have a passion for solving problems and figuring out how things work. When not working for Make I can be found falling off my unicycle, running in adverse weather conditions, skiing down the nearest hill, restoring vintage motorcycles, or working on my car.

In the Maker Shed

4 Responses to In the Maker Shed: Wave Shield Kit

Marc Schaefermeyer on March 28th, 2012 at 8:19 am said:

I’m in the process of building a doorbell just like this. I already have everything put together and am just now working on coding it to randomly play sound clips. I’ll get a video of it put up and post back.

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- asciimation on March 28th, 2012 at 12:26 pm said:
  
  I have cheated on doing things randomly with projects like this in the past by just running a counter in a fast loop. When it is time to play it just looks at the counter and plays whatever number sample matches the current counter value. You just count up to however many samples you have and then rest the counter back to zero. When controlled by a micro the counter is updating so rapidly if it is being triggered by a manual process in real time (someone pressing a button say) the effect is pretty much the same as picking a random sample.
  
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Michael Castor on March 28th, 2012 at 11:09 am said:

Yes please! I’m planning to use the Minty Mote (http://www.makershed.com/Minty_Mote_Arduino_Remote_p/mkwd05.htm) to make a wireless version (since the contractors that put in my new front door cut the doorbell wires.)

You should consider putting your build into Make Projects! (makeprojects.com)

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- Marc Schaefermeyer on March 28th, 2012 at 11:16 am said:
  
  I previously hacked an old Creative Labs MuVo TX FM mp3 player but it was a pain to change the songs and I ended up breaking it when I tried loading my “Christmas” songs.
  I will for sure put it on the projects when I get it working.
  
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