We’ve seen capacitive touch organs manifest in pumpkin form. Though they are a neat idea, there’s something about groping a bunch of gourds that stirs a feeling of mild discomfort every time I play one. [mcreed] probably felt the same way and thus created this light-up Jello organ, so he can jiggle-slap Christmas carols, removing any sense of doubt that touching food to play music is weird…
This take on the capacitive tone producing instrument makes clever use of the transparent properties of Jello as well as its trademark wiggling. [mcreed] fills several small mold forms with festively colored strawberry and lime mix. One end of a wire connection is submerged in the liquid of each cup before it has a chance to solidify along with a bright LED. Once chilled and hardened, the gelatinous mass acts as a giant light emitting contact pad. An Arduino is the micro-controller used for the brain, assigning each Jello shape with a corresponding note. By holding onto a grounding wire and completing the acting circuit, one can play songs on the Jello by poking, spanking, or grazing the mounds.
Though I’m not entirely sure if the video is Jello propaganda or not, the idea is applaudable. I prompt anyone to come up with a more absurd item to use for a capacitive organ (zucchinis have already been done).
This must make Bill Cosby happier than a bag full of roofies! Anyway how bout for next Halloween build this with brain jelly molds and zombie moan notes.
There needs to be some cat food mixed in with the jello mold.
That would make it too moldy.
… in the future we will play jingle bells on a piano made of jello …
coconut radio? XD
There’s no need to use a ground wire – you can do really good fast capacitive sensing without it. Like I did here:http://hackaday.io/project/1500-kwese-musical-instrument. Should be easy to adapt the above circuit, and it’ll make it much more user-friendly (plus different people can play different notes at the same time. Still, nice well-polished hack – good work :)