Tommy Marshall's Microcontroller-Free Oskitone Space Dice Is a Dice Roller and Pew-Pew Generator

Software engineer and maker Tommy Marshall has announced a new Oskitone synthesizer, and this one's pulling double duty: it's a six-sided electronic dice and space-laser sound-maker, because why not?

"The Oskitone Space Dice is a combination space laser noise and electronic dice machine. Press its button to get a random number between one and six and a near-faithful recreation of classic science fiction blaster firing sounds," Marshall explains of his latest creation. "Pew pew pew, one; pew pew pew, five; peewwwww, five again?!; pew two. Use it to play Candyland, choose dinner, or foley a sci-fi film. It's directly inspired by my time as a DIY Synths workshop instructor."

Designed to roughly mimic the footprint of a classic Altoids tin, the 3D-printable housing hides no microcontroller. Instead, there are three key components: a CD4093 quad NAND w/ Schmitt-triggers, which serves as a relaxation oscillator and audio amplifier; a CD4040 binary counter that acts as a prescaler; and a CD4017 decade counter for cycling through six on-board LEDs to select the rolled die.

"The CD4093 is exploiting two hacks," Marshall notes. "Hack 1: There's a big capacitor on the 4093 oscillator's on/off controlling pin. As its voltage drains, the osc frequency drops. A cursory, unexpected VCO [Voltage-Controlled Oscillator]! A pot controls drop length via drain rate. Hack 2: Instead of an extra chip for amplification, the 4093's three otherwise unused NANDs are wired in parallel as a crude square wave booster. It's not a proper amp but plenty strong enough to drive the little speaker."

More information on the project is available on Marshall's blog, with kits available on the Oskitone website for $27 electronics-only or $40 including the 3D-printed housing; design files and 3D-print files are available on GitHub under the reciprocal Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license.