Clearly a lot of time has past since the last post, and if I were a better blogger I would spend at least a moment acknowledging that I have not posted in a long time. But I am not a good blogger.

Instead I write because I have made something. It is not good, but it is something.

This past Monday morning I woke up and realized something. I realized it was time to shower. I don’t shower with great frequency, pandemic or not. I used to shower every day. I’m not sure when that changed, to be honest. Probably college? Anyway, as someone who types for a living and only runs when threatened with deadly force it’s not like I’m breaking a sweat real often, and it’s wet in there. So I wait until I smell. As Monday was a day in which I smelled, I heard the voice of Rafiki telling Simba “it is time” and I knew I had to be brave and go to the cold place and become clean.

Of course, that wasn’t the end of it. I thought it would be hilarious to be able to push a button and have Rafiki tell me it was time. So I made easily the worst piece of consumer electronics and now I can do just that. Behold:

Clearly I am not someone who has ever made anything out of wood. I think the only thing I actually measured was finding the center for the hole for the button. I’m planning on glueing some felt over the speakers and then maybe if I don’t get tired of this project I’ll fill and sand and paint the box. Or maybe just draw that outline of Simba that Rafiki drew. We’ll see.

For the curious, here’s the inside:

It’s made from an Adafruit Feather 32u4 Proto and a Music Maker Feather Wing. And a random arcade button I bought somewhere along the line. It’s powered from a lithium ion pack which can be charged through the micro-usb on the feather, for which I made a finely crafted hole in the back:

One thing I learned is that the 32u4 doesn’t have the right kind of interrupts to be able to play the music in the background, so you literally cannot stop the music. The clip I have loaded is about 50 seconds long. There’s a reset button on the feather, which does stop it I guess, but you’ll need a screwdriver to do so now that it’s in the case. This might change, as Iver has taken a pretty strong liking to pushing the button! A lot of times! In a row!

The code was composed almost entirely from examples, but I mean I guess if you want to make your own music box that plays one song that you can’t stop, go for it.

The case is made out of whatever wood and fasteners I could find in my garage, what with the pandemic and all. Not that it would be much better if I had my choice of materials, but I probably wouldn’t have used some boards I saved from an old box spring.