Easy Button/WalMart Button/Whoopee Cushion Triple Hack++

This instructable shows how to take an Easy button, lift the audio from it, then take an electronic whoopee cushion and lift the audio out of that, and then combine the two sound clips using the free sound editor, Audacity, while adding some special effects. Then we'll take the new sound track and record it into a sound module. Finally, we'll put all of that, along with the speaker from the Easy button, into a new button made by combining the Easy button with parts from a WalMart button, which is actually a wall lamp.

What you need...

1. Easy button - Staples
2. WalMart light button
3. Electronic Whoopee Cushion - toy section of CVS, or record your own audio effects!!!
4. Sound Module - $6.60 from Electronics123.com
5. 4xAAA Battery holder - Radio Shack or Allelectronics
6. Pushbutton switch - Radio Shack or Allelectronics
7. Dremel
8. Hot glue
9. 2" speaker - optional, Radio Shack or Allelectronics

Step 1: Making the Soundtrack

Now we'll make the sound file using the free sound editor program Audacity. Audacity is a very cool tool and it's completely FREE!!! Its commercially available cousin is Sony Sound Forge which will run you $250, and used to cost a lot more than that. Here's more on Audacity from Wikipedia.

Anyway, here's the steps:

1. First you want to fire up Audacity and record the Easy button into your PC using a microphone, or into the mic of a notebook computer. Just click the "record" button on Audacity and a window will open and start recording.

2. Record the electronic whoopee cushion into Audacity. Just click "record" and a new audio track will open.

3. Open a blank audio track (Project>New Audio Track.) This will be our working file and eventually our final sound clip.

4. Pick out some or all of the whoopee sounds and paste them into the final sound clip window. You can cut and paste the sounds to your hearts content. You can use the special effects to add echo, and other things. Just fool around with it and keep playing it back. You can easily undo any effects you add, and you can also preview effects to see how they sound. You can adjust the volume of selected parts of the sound file, too. I used the pitch shifting effect to get something cool. If you understand music and pitch, you can literally duplicate any song.

5. When that's done, select (highlight) the Easy button sound, copy it, and then paste it at the end of the modified whoopee cushion sound in the final sound clip. Play it back and make a final edit to adjust the spacing between the sounds (add silence,) and then you'll want to save the sound file for posterity as an mp3 file (File>Export As MP3,) although you can save it in other formats as well. You can hear the audio file I made in the final step of this instructable.

6. Play back the completed soundtrack while recording it into the sound module.

Step 2: Making a Bigger Easy Button

In order to fit everything inside the new Easy button we need to make the button bigger to make some room. This is where the WalMart button comes in. We can use the base of the Walmart button to enlarge the Easy button as shown in the picture. After removing everything from inside the Easy button, the base of the Walmart button is mated to the Easy button and glued with hot glue from the inside.

We need 4xAAA batteries to run the sound module, which wants 6 volts. So we will replace the battery holder built into the base plate (bottom) of the WalMart button with the 4xAAA battery holder. This is done by cutting off the original battery holder of the WalMart button with a dremel and using hot glue to mount the 4xAAA holder onto the base plate. Also, sound holes can be drilled into the base plate and rubber feet installed.

Next, we need to install a switch to operate the pushbutton for activating the sound module. The pushbutton switch is mounted as shown in the picture. The wires from the new pushbutton switch are soldered to the "PLAY" button on the sound module so it will play when the big Easy button is depressed.

Remove the speaker from the Easy button and mount it to the top of the battery holder as shown in the photo. (Much better results can be obtained by using a speaker other than the one in the Easy button.)