As some of us may know or not know, our speech is made up of a group of sounds known as phenomes. By combining them into a certain order words can be formed and we communicate as such. This also can be the basis for computer-generated speech and an example device to experiment with phenomes has been created by Mike Engeldinger. His "babbletron" has a button for each phenome, and once pressed can be heard - and also sequenced together to create actual words and speech. The brains of the babbletron is is an Arduino controlling a waveform synthesizer shield - and a mux shield to allow for the required number of buttons. It's a fantastic device, and demonstrated in the following video:
Apart from serious use this would also be a lot of fun for sound effects, by replacing the phenomes in the synth shield with various sounds or sayings. For complete details, visit the babbletron project page. And for more, we're on twitter and Google+, so follow us for news and product updates as well.
Have you been reading about Arduino and the types of projects created, but not sure where to start? Then order one our Experimenter's Kit for Arduino:
The package includes a wide variety of parts, sensors and modules including: a servo motor, lights, buttons, switches, sound, sensors, breadboard, wires and more. Furthermore a Freetronics Eleven Arduino-compatible board is included to make this an extensive hobby experimenter, inventor and starter kit. However we don't leave you alone to figure it all out, included is a great project and instruction booklet, plus access to a supporting web page and software examples. In other words - this is everything you need to get started for a fun range of electronics and Arduino related projects! So to get started or for more information and to order, check out the product page.
