Saturday, November 17, 2007

TESLA COIL TUNES

Tesla Coils do more then just look cool shooting up electrical arcs in mad scientist's laboratories. The Austin, TX based science society known as The Geek Group can actually get them to play music. As this video demonstrates, output from two towering Teslas have been modulated from a control unit in order to generate the tones you hear. All that means is you get a light show and sounds from the same instrument. The buzzy music is kinda what you'd expect from a giant electrical gadget.

The Geek Group: Super Mario Theme

More Tesla music from another group of enthusiasts:

Steve Ward: video
Steve Ward: music

Now if only these guys would get together and jam with the 1-bit and tape-record folks...

1 comment:

J-Unit 1 said...

Crazy! I was really surprised to see another science group called "The Geek Group" with the exact same logo as the one in Kalamazoo. However, once I noticed an advert for Kalamazoo Valley Community College at the bottom of the page, I realized that it is the TX branch of Kzoo's Geek Group that is responsible for some of the awesome videos you linked. The Geek Group (I believe) started and is still going in Kalamazoo, MI. Actually, last I heard they had just opened up the Avalon research center here in Kalamazoo. Joe Diprema (sp) was one of the designers of the musical coil, whom I believe is from Paw Paw, MI (A town near Kalamazoo)).

This is just a really weird coincidence because last summer The Deuce Project was contacted to take a tour of the new facility and check out its fabled Tesla Coil. Small world.

J-unit 1