Marta Musik Maschine is a DIY, RFID enabled, multi-purpose, audio and light device for kids. It’s open source and you can build one yourself. It’s not hard at all, I promise.

Welcome to my blog about Marta Musik Maschine!

On the next few posts I’ll try to explain why and how I built a toy for children of around two years and up. This blog is dedicated to the idea of you, the reader, understanding my design considerations, allowing you to build your own M³ and if you like advance the casing, electronics or software part of this project.

Before diving into the build process and all its details, have a look at the finished product in action.

Continue reading “1 – Introduction” →

I’m not saying that I hate web development, media and publishing, but I don’t like it either.

In this series of blog posts, I’m going to present a multi purpose kids toy called Marta Musik Maschine. But before diving into the build process, let me say a few words about the blog itself.

This WordPress instance runs on a non-dedicated server (i.e. simple web space). I don’t see an easy way of hosting something like GitLab at the moment. All the source code, 3D models and KiCad files belonging to this project can instead be found in an external repository at github.com/martamusikmaschine/mmm.

I’m not a native English speaker. I’m writing the blog posts after long work days and evenings full of kids animation. Please forgive me the one or the other not too eloquent sentence (like this). If you find any misspellings or strange word constructs that you want to be fixed, just let me know by commenting under the article or emailing me (marta [at] martamusikmaschine [.] com).

I’ve always had at least one side project running in one form or another next to whatever my profession was at a given time.

I’m more of a software guy, so in my spare time I try to do hardware projects; may it be handcrafting, soldering or 3D printing. Also I like building things, not using them.

Continue reading “1.2 – Motivation” →

Actively think about the way you want to reach your target by dividing your project in smaller, yet functional parts.

Before moving pell-mell into a new project, even a private one, write down what you want to accomplish, what’s most important and what can possibly be neglected. Reflect on your possibilities and limitations concerning experience, personal capabilities, tools, space, spare time, money, preferences, help and everything that could possibly interfere with your intermediary goals. Do not forget, that learning is an accomplishment in itself. It’s totally legitimate to define the possession of a new capability as part of your project.

Continue reading “1.3 – Features and Requirements” →

I find it incredibly satisfying to imagine a product in my mind, design it, manufacture it and eventually hold it in my own hands.

But why go the hard way when you can buy nice products on the market already? I have to admit that the idea of building an RFID activated music machine came back to my mind and onto the project list when I saw the Toniebox.

Continue reading “1.4 – Toniebox from Tonies®” →

“Show me the money!”

You’ll need a few things to fulfill your lifetime dream of building and giving away your own Marta Musik Maschine.

Before ordering anything, make sure that all the prerequisites are met for this project. Definitely read through every single blog post so that you know what’s coming up to you. It’s important to have a few things at hand and a certain set of skills if you want to successfully conduct the task of building M³ the way it is intended:

Continue reading “1.5 – Shopping List (BOM)” →