What is cooler than a healthy array of arcade buttons? How about the NeoFighter, a square of 16 buttons with RGB lighting, set up for use as a custom game controller, MIDI interface, interactive display, or anything else you can think of. Check it out in the video below playing an electronic tune.
Of course, you could make something like this yourself, but If you’d rather skip the hardware development part of your project and warp straight to programming an awesome project, this is an excellent device. It’s powered by an ATmega32u4 chip, and can be programmed via the Arduino IDE. As noted, it can work with GarageBand, Abelton Live, and other MIDI tools, making it ideal for pumping out your own tunes. Given its versatility—it’s available in several assembly states—I could even see several of these used together for an incredible display or multi-player musical device.
If this seems somewhat familiar, you may be thinking of the Midi Fighter. It uses nearly the same configuration, and creator “w4ilun” even credits it as inspiration in his project writeup. You can it played expertly in the video below, which also looks like a really fun device. If, however, you want something that’s entirely hackable the NeoFighter is certainly worth a look!
