Interactive Cubes Workshop

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Revision as of 11:04, 10 October 2013 by Cedric (talk | contribs) (Add hackathon suggestion.)
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Tuesday between 6 and 8pm:

Software/Hardware Hacking at Noisebridge, where we dig deep into the Sifteo cubes http://sifteo.com

...if you feel courageous, it might lead to a hackathon with Sifteo prizes soon.


Sifteo cubes are the best hackable platform, here is a summary of what they have:

  • an accelerometer
  • a touch screen (128x128)
  • 4 proximity sensors (to recognize other cubes touching their 4 sides)


They are wirelessly connected to a base with:

  • an STM32 (cortex M3)
  • a mono speaker
  • a usb connection to log anything to a computer

The base can communicate with up to 12 cubes (maybe 24 if you ask nicely).

It can be programmed with a simple C++ SDK (a bit like arduino but much more powerful).


Examples of a few projects that could be done:

  • magic light juggle: acceleration change the color/brightness and the cubes disappear in the air
  • siftephone in: listen to a smartphone vibrations with Sifteo's accelerometer
  • siftephone out: talk to a smartphone using sound with audio system such as chirp.io (a 1st proof of concept can be found here)
  • music & light: implement a BPM counter to blink color screens on the music rythme by listening to the vibrations sensed by accelerometer
  • midi controller: play music using the cubes as midi instruments with Ableton or Renoise (a 1st proof of concept can be found here)
  • internet of things: control anything remotely using python to forward Sifteo logs to an email or a server such as heroku or parse.com
  • simple hacks involving microcontrollers such as Arduino can be tried too but the project must be worth it ;p (it's a bit more complicated)


If interested, please don't just show up, your participation/preparation is important:


For more info talk to J.C. or Cédric.