Home made mp3 player.

Hello there. I have a need for an mp3 player, but not in the conventional sense. I came here to ask people who'd know better than my technology-illiterate parents (I had to play my dad's music for him on his computer using WMP...) if it was a possible project. Assume that I have all the money in the world but don't want to spend any, and give me ideas accordingly.

The Player: It only needs to be able to play 1 (3 MB tops, in .wav, .wma, .mp3, or even .ogg format, only need one format) song on a loop, for a 8.5 hour period. That is the only criteria. Bad sound quality, a little skipping here and there, burning to a cinder after exactly 8.5 hours and one nanosecond, all of these things make no difference. It should have a headphone jack that I can wire into a disposable cell phone's mic slot.

The Plan: Store it in a locker at school, dial the intercom, and play the Hamster Dance song for the entire school day, from the time I come in for a before-school AP class to the time I leave after play rehearsals. The cell phone I can take care of, I have a disposable cell phone already, prepaid with a card for exactly 9 hours. I can have it on a time delay, also done on my own. I can redial it between classes if they shut off the intercom, or set it to redial after it gets disconnected.

The Resources: I live by an Ax-Man, an electronics surplus store. They have hard drives, LCD screens, batteries, speakers, wires, jacks, plugs, sirens, air horns, bells, whistles, the works. Anything you list I can find a cheap equivalent of there.

I hope this isn't too expensive or impossible. I have a time frame of 4 months to complete this project, and the sooner I get helpful tips, the sooner I can begin.

Go!

 

Welcome!

http://web.media.mit.edu/~ladyada/make/minty/index.html

 

Very cool DIY project!

 

This is just perfect. Hell, I'll make one for myself as well as one for the prank. Very nice recommendation, can't thank you enough.

 

no problem. geez... now i want to make one for myself! now to find $25 after i spent so much on textbooks and taxes.......

 

I agree. I have about 10 of the tins if someone wants to make one for me j/k . Cool idea.

 

I am suprised the mods left this up. I did not know we were into "hacking the PA at school"

I will be interested in seeing pics of one after the build though.

 

Hey, that part I'm taking care of myself. This is asking about the technical aspects of constructing an mp3 player. How could it be used irresponsibly?


...*cough* Oh yeah. Still, it's a nice project and I can already see that there are other people here as intrigued as I am, though maybe not for the same reasons. A good, interesting, cost-efficient means to a, in most cases, undetermined end. I don't see much wrong, it's an innocent prank. Not anything like the "big hug" where everyone came out of class at the same time and hugged in a huge group hug, then walked out of school and managed to steal some TVs on the way (don't ask how).

 

To quote Randal from "Clerks"

Insubordination rules.

However, you may want to take note of this little disclaimer they have in big bold-face type: This is an advanced project, I highly suggest that you don't take on a project like this to 'learn how to solder' or 'how to program a PIC'.

 

4 people working on it with one who went to Ax-man and built himself a PC with 2.56 Ghz, 1 Gig DDR RAM, 128MB video card, the works, all from the spare parts, another employee of a company called "The Geek Squad", another who's been soldering stuff together since he was 12, and another who knows more programming languages than I do spoken languages (French, Russian, English, Spanish, and some Arabic), I think we can handle it. Worst case scenario we get a tough project, a prospect to which none of us are adverse.

 

In that case, go on, and wreak havoc, you raggle taggle mischief makers.

 

Make that technically proficient raggle taggle mischeif makers

Since we're not encouraging or condoning the activity you are intending to perform with said mp3 player, I don't see a problem with the thread. But then, I'm not a mod in the lounge

I may want to try making one of these, perhaps even make it networkable (I've messed with PIC chips which can handle TCP/IP before). Wonder if I can get one to read from network shares

 

besides, school pranks are fun (to an extent), and so are homemade mp3 players

 

You know...if you put as much effort into your school work as your pranks....... *grins*...... I know...once a teacher always a teacher

Actually, my mum's school did something similar only they had speakers under the school stage......was so funny watching staff try to found out where the heck the sounds were coming from