Cardboard NFC Record Player

While today’s modern music streaming technology provides us with an array of choices that would have been unimaginable not too long ago, there’s still something kind of magical about using physical media – e.g. a record – to select your audio entertainment. To put a modern spin on this audio ritual, CreativeLabs built a turntable and record setup using NFC tags, an ESP32, and lots of cardboard.

The device is controlled by an ESP32 dev board, which receives data from NFC-tagged cardboard disks using an MFRC522 RFID reader. This powers a DFPlayer Mini module, which plays songs stored on a microSD card on a small speaker. For turntable-spinning action, the setup uses a 28BYJ-48 stepper motor, along with a ULN2003 driver, to which disks attach via a small magnet and cardboard platform.

The body of the record player is made out of cardboard, as outlined in CreativeLabs' write-up. On top of its basic box shape the circular platform supports cardboard "records," and a pretend volume slider and corner triangles provide visual interest. The also-for-looks needle arm is cleverly made to swing back and forth on a magnetic anchor. While manual cutting is envisioned, one could also see this translated into a laser-compatible design – or one that uses any number of other making methodologies.

It’s a simple and well-thought-out p, and it looks like a lot of fun to construct and use. Just place cardboard “records” on the player and the NFC reader/processing hardware/onboard audio components do the rest. Check it out in the short video demo below!