8087-S1

aka Rudolph's Noisemaker Tool for Arduino

I wanted my current robot project to make cool bleeps bloops and other stupid noises. Instead of just doing it I spent three days writing software to make an easy job "easier". Well, okay, I spent two days doing it wrong, then switched to Python and tried again. This package is the end result. It consists of an Arduino sketch that makes noise from numbers, and a GUI Python frontend to make it "clickier" (oooh).

I made this on a Linux system using Python 2.5.2. You'll also need pySerial installed. Oh, and an Arduino ;) I have no idea if it will work on other operating systems, or with other versions of Python. YMMV. If you try it on another OS and it works, please let me know so I can update this file. If you had to change anything to make it work, and feel like sharing your changes, feel free to post your tweaks back so I can release an updated version (thanks in advance). You can leave comments at my site or here.

I was having a hard time thinking up a name for it, and didn't really want to call it "Noisemaker Tool", or anything with the Arduino name actually in it. Then it hit me. Taking a styling cue from rik I decided to name it after it's node here. Henceforth it shall be called "8087-S1", the S1 designating it as the first Software I've put here.

Download

Currently the package can be downloaded from rudforce.net in either .tar.gz or .zip format. If anyone actually uses it, or if I get tired enough of a missing feature, I may actually get a real SVN repository set up. Maybe.

Windows

Making the Python frontend work in Windows is largely untested. Thanks to Gareth for being the first to try, and more thanks to him for actually sending me the ensuing error message :) Since I can't really test in Windows, this is a wild guess, but it seems win32 Python may not install enough stuff to make pySerial work. Try installing pywin32 from here in addition to Python and pySerial.

Obligatory Screenshot