tinyTesla: the tiny coil that sparks, sings and teaches

A lot of things today are about building things on your own, with things like Raspberry Pi and MakerBot. But how about building your own Tesla coil right at home, or preferably in school? tinyTesla is trying to deliver just that, but, instead of shipping something educational but boring, oneTesla, the startup behind it, will be helping you build a Tesla coil that can sing.

OK, so maybe "singing" is a bit of an exaggeration. While tinyTesla doesn't have vocal chords to actually sing, it can play music, a specific kind of music to be exact. By heating up air and creating pressure waves, tinyTesla can produce audible sound. Using music from a MIDI source, tinyTesla can play almost any type of music, provided it has been converted to MIDI format. But don't take our word for it, here's the coil in action, playing the popular Clown music while lighting up a regular bulb at the same time.

As you noticed, and as the name already indicates, tinyTesla, and its much bigger oneTeslaTS brother, is all about electricity. Their purpose, more than just to entertain and potentially fry you, is to teach you about the principles of physics, electronics, and engineering. And it does that by actually letting you build tinyTesla from the ground up. Yes, tinyTesla isn't a finished whole product, but a kit that just includes the components to build it. And a constantly updated online manual. Don't worry about being a genius in order to put it together though, as tinyTesla was designed with school scenarios in mind. The philosophy is "if you can solder, you can build it."

tinyTesla, however, is an unbuilt product in more ways than one. It is still in its Kickstarter stages, but is already nearing its completion with 18 days left. That said, oneTesla has already built some good rapport with its previous successful Kickstarter campaign, revolving around the first oneTesla coil, so there is hopefully little worry that they will be able to deliver, especially after raising more than 7 times the initial 20,000 goal.

SOURCE: Kickstarter