I won first place at the SMU Family Weekend Talent Show by eating fruit!
As far as I know, I'm currently the only person in the world to ever perform "musical eating." Here's the full five minute long performance.
How does it work? #
I used a magical device called the MaKey MaKey that was funded on Kickstarter in June. It was developed by students at MIT Media Lab to be a device that lets anybody make things:
We believe that everyone is creative, inventive, and imaginative. We believe that everyone can create the future and change the world. So we have dedicated our lives to making easy-to-use invention kits. We believe that the whole world is a construction kit, if we choose to see it that way.
It works by sending keyboard messages to your computer when a connection is made between things it's plugged into:
The power of MaKey MaKey comes from being able to turn literally anything into a key.
The creators of MaKey MaKey held an innovation contest shortly after being funded, and I was lucky enough to be one of ten winners to receive a beta board! I'd wanted to perform something at SMU's annual Family Weekend Talent Show since my freshmen year, and I saw this as a perfect opportunity to do something unique.
I attached the most diverse array of foods and drinks I could think of to each of the MaKey MaKey's keys, mapped each key to a MIDI note signal with MidiKeys, and mapped each signal to a sound with GarageBand. I then wore non-conductive gloves so the connections would only be completed if each thing touched my mouth.
Aftermath #
I later sent this video to the MaKey MaKey team (now encorporated as JoyLabz) and they were so impressed they offered me the first MaKey MaKey "Pro-Maker" sponsorship. I was also brought on Good Morning Texas for a reprise performance.