Child-Friendly Music Player Uses RFID

[David] has a young child who is clever enough to use a computer to play music, but he doesn’t quite want to hand over the mouse just yet. Thus, he set about building an electronic music player that could be operated in an altogether simpler fashion. 

The build is based around an Arduino Nano — its job is to read RFID tags via an RC522 reader, with the tags themselves embedded in a series of small dolls belonging to [David]’s daughter. Upon reading the tag, the Arduino Nano chats over serial with a DFPlayer Mini module, which reads a playlist of MP3 files off of an SD card and plays them over a small 4 ohm speaker that [David] had laying around. It’s a simple build, with the components all neatly wrapped up in a handsome wooden case with a volume control and a skip button for if any one song becomes too annoying for a repeat listen.

We’ve featured other builds in this vein before, too. There’s something satisfying about a music player with such a simple interface—no delicate media to fiddle with, just pop the toy on top and get the playlist you were looking for. If you’re creating your own little musical builds at home, we’d love to see them on the tipsline.

Digital Bike Horn Will Play Custom Sounds, Please Be Tasteful

When you’re out riding your bike, a horn can be a useful warning device to other road users and pedestrians alike. It can also be a source of fun and amusement, or annoyance, depending on the sounds it makes and how you use it. For the ultimate flexibility, you might like this digital bicycle horn that offers customizable sounds, as developed by [gokux].

The build has attractive two-tone components, consisting of a button pad for playing four sounds, and a sound module with a 3 watt speaker and battery pack. A Seeed Studio XIAO SAMD21 is the heart of the operation, with the microcontroller paired with a DFPlayer Mini which handles sound duties. When one of the four buttons is pressed, the microcontroller loads the relevant sound off an SD card, and plays it out over the speaker. For power, the build uses a lithium rechargeable battery with a healthy 1200 mAh capacity, which can be readily recharged thanks to a TP4056 charger module with a USB-C port.

It’s a nifty little build, and we love the Metal Gear Solid sounds. Though, we do wonder just how audible that 3 watt speaker is. If it proves inadequate, you could always step up to a much larger driver paired with a hefty audio amp if you so desire.

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