Circuit Bending Workshop

Date: Saturday May 6th

Time: 10AM-Noon

Location: Center for Musical Arts, 200 East Baseline Rd. in Lafayette

Cost: $15

Circuit Bending lets you re-purpose old toys, games, and electronics to make new and interesting sound instruments.

Reed Ghazala is credited with pioneering the process and coining the name in 1966. Modern day circuit bending has gotten very advanced. Popular toys that have been used for circuit bending include the Speak and Spell series from the 70s and 80s, Casio keyboards from the 80s and many other types of toys from that era. Modern circuit bending takes these toys and interfaces them with small and cheap devices so that they can be connected to other electronics like laptops or synthesizers.

If you are interested in the workshop please bring $15 to the workshop on Saturday. We are limited to 15 people actually working on things because of the time and resources involved, but anyone is welcome to watch for free. If you would like to bring an old toy you can, depending on how it is made we can instruct you on how to add an audio output to it at the basic level, and if it is old enough we may be able to assist you in modifying it.

This workshop is hosted by Travis Sturm and John Rasmussen.

Some additional resources/info:

Here is an overview of what people do with Speak and Spells.

Here is a good article on circuit bending.

Here is a wiki article on circuit bending.