Od

mcclintic.sphere.fx

Od is a program for the Music Thing Modular Workshop System's Computer module that simulates the Lorenz system in order to produce loop-able control voltage and pulse signals that display sensitivity to initial conditions. "Od" is Cymraeg for "odd" or "strange". For detailed documentation please see the included PDF.

The program can be flashed to the Computer module following the instructions at the Computer page after downloading the .uf2 binary for the latest version from the releases page of the program repo. When started, the program will light all 6 LEDs until boot is complete, and then turn the LEDs off and begin the simulation. Note the current default behaviour when the modules starts with the switch up is to stay in loop mode until the switched is moved to the middle.

The program is created using the pyworkshopsystem package, a reusable tool for building programs for the Computer module using MicroPython.

Building the .uf2 Binary

NB: This has only been tested on Mac OS Sequoia 15.4. The process should work similarly for other operating systems but the installation of the prerequisites will differ. This procedure is only necessary if customizing the program.

The source code can be frozen into the micropython code within a .uf2 file, allowing for flashing of the Od program. This process is not mature or well-tested, so per-release, pre-built .uf2 files are provided in the release page of the git repo (see above).

Building requires cmake and the appropriate GNU embedded toolchain. On MacOS these can be installed using homebrew:

brew install cmake

brew install gcc-arm-embedded

The bash script clone_mp.sh clones the micropython repo, and initializes the submodules needed to build the rp2 port of micropython. The build.sh script then builds the cross-compiler, the board/port submodules and finally the firmware.uf2 file, which is copied to the root dist directory. This file can be copied to the Computer module.