Skyberries and Voidmelons or Voidberries and Skymelons

The Musical Ballpit was a ballpit that made sounds as you moved in it, which deathboy and I created for EMFCamp 2016 in the summer.

My inspiration for the musical ballpit came from a talk by Di Mainstone at Dorkbot in London last December.

At that Dorkbot, I remember there were talks about emotive wearables, molerats, and snowflakes and I attempted making a sputnik bauble.

But the talk that inspired me the most was during the Open dorks section, by Di Mainstone, who has created wonderful projects such as the human harp on Clifton Suspension Bridge. She spoke about how she was looking for collaborators to work on a project that would make sounds as you moved through sand. I wondered about this, and then concluded that making sounds as you moved through balls in a ballpit would surely be easier.

I suggested it to deathboy, who was also at Dorkbot that night, even though I thought it was a bit of a silly idea. He convinced me that we could make it possible and we should take it to EMFCamp the following August.

I started telling friends about the musical ballpit, and found I was quite enthusiastic about the idea, and realised it was something I should actually try to make happen.

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On Friday, I arrived in a field in Milton Keynes, pitched my tent and draped it (and a nearby tree) with robot bunting, and hooked up to a power supply. This was for EMFCamp - "A three-day UK camping festival for people with an inquisitive mind or an interest in making things: hackers, geeks, scientists, engineers, artists, and crafters." (Or Geek Glastonbury as the BBC seem to call it).

There were various talks and workshops happening between Friday and Sunday (see the talk schedule), and hopefully they will appear online soon as well. I went to interesting talks on: The demo scene: the biggest digital art movement you've never heard of (Matthew Westcott); Introduction to Esperanto (Gavan Fantom); Make yourself into a zombie workshop (Kate Oliver) (where I learnt how to embed random things in my face (I ended up with an LED and a battery on my face held on with spirit gum, liquid latex and wax! (see photo) and how to make fake blood out of golden syrup), This Pilsner Tastes of Doom Metal – Music Recommender Systems and Beer (Ben Fields), Big Pharma (Ben Goldacre), Programming is terrible. Lessons learned from a life wasted (Tef), and Lightning talks (various people).

I also saw Gavan fly his homemade quadrotor really high! (And also almost got hit by someone else's one.) I saw a giant Pacman (and ghosts) in the field, and hung out in a bar underneath a motorway bridge, which had a dinosaur skeleton and many excellent and interesting people to talk to in it.

Really looking forward to the next one in 2014!