The Standuino project was started by Ondřej Merta and Václav Peloušek in a workshop in May 2011 and this determined its main focus. So far there have been around 20 workshops in 6 countries where more than 180 people attended. During this period of building electronic instruments with people, the fraAngelico synthesizer was developed and it was adapted for workshop use. The day usually starts with a pile of electronic components and in the evening, the participants play a public concert on their hand-made customized instruments. There are no requirements for participants except the ability to communicate in the workshop language and so far every participant has been successful with his or her instrument. All the customized designs of fraAngelico are documented, as are as well as the workshop groups. Some of the groups have already formed bands.

Besides this manual activity we also talk about the context of building your own repairable instruments and about what it means in the world of mechanized manufacture in distant countries. Also we try to tell stories from history about home-electronics creativity versus the so called media arts. We learn how to use the synthesizer and how to make some simple compositions. All the participants are encouraged to repair, modify or rebuild their instruments over the course of time.

The fraAngelico is an 8-bit PWM true-digital synthesizer with extreme hacking abilities by means of both hardware and software. It can be reprogrammed easily through the Arduino environment and the fraAngelico software is open-source. An example of its universality is the hack software frauAngelico, which is a sample-based drum synthesizer with microsamplingpossibilities and a step-sequencer. The instruments are equipped with MIDI input so you can synchronize themeasily with any other musical instruments.

more about the workshop: http://www.standuino.eu/call-workshop-zagreb/