Hardware Hacking 53Vegetable and fruit also have resistive value, which changes as they dry out or
are squished. You can try substituting small slices of produce for the antistatic
foam in the above experiment, or poke bare wire directly into carrots or apples.
Paul Demarinis made some beautiful “circuits with a natural lifetime” this way.
As some of you may remember from childhood science experiments, it is also
possible to make a battery out of fruit or vegetable, but this will wait for another
chapter.
Almost a Short Circuit
Another very useful modification is using a resistor to make a new connection
between two locations on a circuit board. Start with a resistor of about 1000
Ohms (1kOhms). While listening to the toy, press one end of the resistor to a
solder point on the solder side of the board; then touch the other end to various
other points -- if the circuit board is large you may need to use a clip lead to
reach all over. You may or may not get some interesting sounding circuit
malfunctions.
Disconnect immediately any connection that seems to cause heat, smoke or
flame.
Try different value resistors, but avoid shorting out the board with straight wire
(see the 7th Rule of Hacking.) If you find that the best sounds happen with the
smallest value resistor you can try a straight wire, but do so gingerly and be
prepared to remove the wire as soon as you feel or smell trouble. You can also
try using capacitors instead of resistors. You can go back to your radio and
experiment with using resistors to jump between the hot spots you bridged with
your damp finger.
Once you find a useful connection you can solder the resistor permanently into
place, or add a switch to connect and disconnect it (see next chapter for switch
information.)
This technique is a the heart of Reed Ghazala’s wonderful “Circuit Bending”
philosophy of hardware hacking (see Appendix 1,) and is a very powerful and
creative tool for extracting unusual sounds from almost any found circuits.