The Insect Buzz are hand held placards that buzz quite loudly when their button is pressed. They are to be used in ecological protests and other opportunities where the user wants to remind others that insects are disappearing rapidly and that we will be in big trouble when they are gone. Or just make some noise. I have tested Insect Buzzes during protests with Strke4Climate and Extinction Rebellion in summer and Autumn 2019 in Cardiff and London.

 

 

The plan is to have swarms of Insect Buzzes taking to the street during protest marches and other events.

 

There have already been several protoypes, leading to the current set of 4. Using leftover credit at a circuit board manufacturer I have made 50 circuits that I am planning to distribute in workshops like this one.

 

 

The Insect Buzzes above are fitted with a buzz engine running on an ATTiny microcontroller that generates a semi random square wave when the button is pressed. The sound is produced by a contact speaker mounted to the back of the wooden plate. All the wood and paint, the battery, some of the electronics, were sourced from recycled/leftover stock. The circuit is made on a prototyping board that necessitated no etching or milling. Specifically purchased new parts were the battery charging circuit and speaker.

 

Below: buzz circuit engines with PCB. Not so good resources wise, but they make workshops and deployment easier.

 

 

 

The Insect Buzz benefit from funding from the EASTN-DC European Research project at Cardiff School of Art and Design