Ever wanted a soundtrack to your life? For a couple of minutes at a time, Signal Snowboards creates that experience with a smart snowboard that varies your music depending on the tricks you perform on your way down the mountain.
The sign on the door says “School For Gifted Hackers”. Inside [Matt Davis] helped interface audio with an accelerometer – something he regularly does with all manner of hacked devices. At first the prototype was an iPhone mimicking the motions of a snowboarder the way fighter pilots describe dogfights with their hands. The audio engine that pulls those mostions to sound is open source and anyone is welcome to do their own tuning.
Once the audio was figured out the boys took it back to their shop and embedded the sensors into a new snowboard. The board is equipped with GPS, an accelerometer, a few rows of LEDs and a bluetooth board to connect to the phone app. It’s all powered by an on-board LiPo battery and a barrel jack out the side to charge it. Channels were cut by hand with a router then electronics sealed in place with epoxy. Not wanting to “just strap some Christmas lights onto a snowboard” the lighting is also connected to the sensors and is programmable.
See the video below of them making the board and taking it out for a test run on Bear Mountain.
Thanks [Ronald] for the tip.
AT first I thought it looked super mean…but all that they seem to be doing is upping higher frequencies and killing the lower frequencies whenever they get a big change from the accelerometer…could do so much more with it.
Or maybe the video just doesn’t do it justice…
It’s programmable, so if you want to do so much more with it, you could!
Looking forward to seeing a real hack for Sunday!
If the accelerometer detects that the user is starting to fall over, switch the music to “Yakkity Sax”. Especially if they fall over a lot (which is sort of a given, since this is for snowboards.)
2:42 I think they broke the LEDs.