DIY Instrument kit
As a child I loved tearing old radios and phones apart to find out how they worked. Unfortunately, for my parents, the things would never work again. As I got older that curiosity never went away which is probably why most of my career has revolved around fixing mechanical things. The DIY Instrument Kit (by Technology Will Save Us) is one of those items that foster the curiosity of the 8 year old in all of us.
Now I want to put out a “Disclaimer Notice” to everyone first. Make sure you have a good soldering iron and solder first. When I started this project I had what I would have considered a decent one. I was horribly mistaken and got frustrated very quickly. This was no fault of Technology Will Save Us, the blame sits solely on my shoulders. It also helps to watch some of their online videos as a refresher on how to solder. It has been a few years since I’ve had to solder anything and the videos helped, and in fact showed me some things I never knew. With that disclaimer out of the way lets move onto the review.
The DIY Instrument Kit comes in a little purple and yellow box. All the small pieces come in bags and the Printed Circuit Board (PCB) comes in a little electrostatic bag. The items you need to get for yourself are the safety glasses, soldering iron, solder, side cuts and the Instruction manual. The manual guides you through step by step and was very easy to understand. At the end of the manual it gives you a glossary with pictures of every item you have in the kit. The box tells you it should take about an hour and I would have to agree with that statement. The one thing I don’t agree with on the box is the age limit. The box says 8 and older, I’m not sure I would let my 8 year old try and make this without very close adult supervision. However, the website tells you ages 10 to 110 which I would probably agree with. I could see my 10 year old building this with just a little bit of guidance (if I could get him away from the PC for a bit).
One added bonus of this item is that it comes with a little 4 pin connector that you can use to connect it to an Arduino device. Once connected you can control the lights, volume and frequency from the Arduino.
