Drawdio Turns Drawings Into Songs, You Into a Musician

So, remember when you’d doodle in class instead of paying attention to your teachers? And they said that you’d never amount to anything because of it?

Well, they were probably right. But at least now you can turn your sketches into music, with the Drawdio pencil that literally lets you ‘draw songs (drawing + audio = Drawdio)’, an experimental project from those crazy geniuses at MIT.

The tech uses the conductive properties of a pencil’s graphite to transmit current and create sound. Attach the kit to a pencil and doodle something and it will create different notes. No, really.

But in fact, anything that conducts electricity can be used. Attach one side of Drawdio to your hand and the other to a brush and you can use your couch to make music. Or turn a streak of water smeared onto a countertop into a synthesizer. It’s pretty amazing.

It’s true that the model in the video produces a pretty squeaky sound, but it’s only a prototype. Once someone remixes the technology to use a better quality synthesizer, who knows? We might be drawing Beethoven’s 5th soon enough.

Also cool is that the project is made under a Creative Commons license and people are free to recreate and reconfigure the tech.