What is SPOKE and how does it turn touch into sound?

What the board actually is

The SPOKE measures roughly the diameter of a compact disc. Its edge carries 27 holes, each ringed by a copper oval that functions as a capacitive touch pad. Every pad connects to its own GPIO pin on the RP2040 microcontroller. A USB-C port supplies power and data. Two buttons sit on the face: Boot and Reset. Two Qwiic or STEMMA QT ports sit ready for extra sensors, though using them disables a couple of the touch pads. Twenty-seven NeoPixel RGB LEDs sit under the pads, one per hole.

How it works as a musical device out of the box

Plug the board into a computer and it enumerates as a standard MIDI controller. No driver install is required. Open spokeboard.com in a browser, click the SPOKE button, grant MIDI access, and touch a pad. A note sounds immediately. The default firmware maps the 27 pads to a pentatonic scale, five notes per octave. Each touch also shifts the color of the corresponding NeoPixel. The website offers a Play tab with several modes. Visualisers play different sounds and draw graphics as you tap. The Harmonic Table assigns 100 polygons to notes. A One-Shot Drum Kit mode turns pads into percussion triggers. A Storytime Page lets you attach sound effects for reading aloud. The Audio Playground searches thousands of samples on Freesound.org or records from a microphone and assigns one to each pad. Because the board speaks standard MIDI, any browser synth or desktop DAW with MIDI input can receive its messages.

Extending the pads beyond the board

Capacitive sensing works through any conductive material. Copper tape, conductive thread, conductive ink, and even pencil graphite extend the reach of a pad. The announcement describes clipping crocodile leads to pieces of fruit to build a miniature drum kit. After attaching external conductors, press the Reset button once to recalibrate the sensitivity baseline.

Programming it without installing anything

The firmware runs CircuitPython. You can edit it with Thonny or any IDE that talks to a Pico. The spokeboard.com site also hosts a browser-based Code Playground. Connect over serial, load an example, and modify it live. Examples include an arpeggiator, a step sequencer, NeoPixel pattern scripts, a HID keyboard mode that assigns a letter plus SPACE to each pad, and a Minecraft game controller profile that includes mouse buttons. A Learn To Code page walks newcomers through the basics. Project showcases on the site feature a bonsai tree instrument and an interactive map that triggers video when hidden sensors are touched.

Price, release date and whether the board arrives assembled or as a kit are all absent from the announcement.