Music Box 2.0

There are alarm clocks, teddy bears and music boxes you can upload MP3s to or record your own sound and they will play that back on request, usually in very bad quality.

I like the chime sound of classic mechanical music boxes, and so do many children. Most of these use rotating cylinders with little bumps stroking a comb to generate their noise. Some use classic punch tape instead, where holes mean notes. The latter you can kind of program yourself.

It would be much cooler, though, if you could just transmit a standard MIDI file from your computer via USB or Bluetooth to the music box, the bumps on the cylinder would change accordingly and henceforth generate a different melody.

I’d also take an USB xylophone or carillon, but have seen both baked on You Tube with some Arduino magic. (If only I didn’t have two left hands an no patience.)