Day 1 Unboxing & organising the kit — meeting every component before the first joint.
Old Dog New Tricks
One illustrator. One soldering iron. Learning electronics from scratch.
Meet Steve — amomii's illustrator and, by his own admission, the least techy person in the building. We handed him a Testudo kit, a soldering iron and zero prior experience, then pressed record. Old Dog, New Tricks follows every step of his build, mistakes and all: the first nervous joint, the projects that actually work, and yes, the two chips he soldered in backwards. If a self-confessed non-techy can learn to solder, so can you. Start at Day 0 and follow along — no experience required.
Meet Steve — amomii's illustrator and self-confessed least-techy team member — taking on the Testudo kit from scratch.
Part one — The Mini Grand
Day 2 Soldering the Mini Grand — Steve's very first build, iron in hand.
Day 3 The nervous first power-up — did every Mini Grand joint hold?
Day 4 First play: loading Robo-Piano and making some (questionable) music.
Day 5 Recordion — record your tunes and play them back on the Mini Grand.
Day 6 Wrapping up the Mini Grand with the two Sequencer projects.
Part two — IR Hacks
Day 7 Build two begins — soldering the IR Hacks board (and a fiddly new iron tip).
Day 8 Testing IR Hacks — it all works first try, plus a cheeky game of Tic-Tac-Toe.
Day 9 Playing Snake on IR Hacks — faster and meaner than Steve remembers.
Day 10 Space Invaders — a true retro classic running on hardware you built.
Day 11 Putting IR Hacks to work as a calculator (homework: sorted).
Day 12 Turning IR Hacks into a temperature & humidity sensor.
Part three — Neon Tennis
Day 13 The toughest build yet — soldering the densely-packed Neon Tennis shield.
Day 14 A real lesson: two chips in backwards, and a first go with the solder sucker.
Day 15 Neon Tennis, round two — Steve takes on the computer and (eventually) wins.
Day 16 A frantic timed drawing challenge powered by the Neon Tennis timer.
Part four — Level up
Day 17 Looking back — what a total beginner actually learned across three builds.
Day 18 Time to play — meet Tony Lockdown, the phygital game for your Testudo.