WAM BAM JAM 2024 @ Recurse Center

Weird Web Instrument Making Festival

Kick off: Wed May 8th 6pm US Eastern
Play and Tell: Thu May 9th 5pm 2024 US Eastern
Contact: Greg Sadetsky F2 23 on Zulip, and email.

How does it work?

Join us for the kick off on May 8th 6pm ET at the Recurse Center Hub and simultaneously online for remote participants.
You will then have 23 hours to make a weird web instrument.
Submit a .zip file of your instrument code using this link **before** May 9th 5pm ET. Please include all necessary files. It's ok to include node_modules or not, we'll probably figure it out.
On May 9th at 5pm ET, join the Play and Tell! Everyone will present their instrument for 1 to 2 minutes (depending on the number of submissions).
Recurse community members will then vote on their favorite instrument(s) on Zulip.
The maker(s) of the most-voted-for instrument will receive a zeptocore (made by Recurse's own Zack Scholl!) In addition, a pikocore will be randomly drawn among all participants (minus the zeptocore winner)!
Finally, we'll make all of the submitted instruments available online. Obviously if someone doesn't want their instrument to be online, we won't put it there. But it'd be fun to keep an archive!

Need inspiration??

Download these minimal instruments: instrument1, instrument2

To run a small web server on your computer, run:
npm install --global http-server
then cd to the directory with your html+js+... files, and run:
http-server .
Then open your browser and go to http://localhost:8080

Also! Don't forget that audio usually cannot start playing in a web page without the user first interacting with the page! So, like, make a button and wait until they press it before starting to play.

Rules

(Rule I thought of after we kicked off) When we randomly draw the pikocore from the pool of all people who submitted, we will exclude the person/team who wins the zeptocore from the drawing (i.e. you may win either 'cores but not both). I hope that's ok!
If two instruments are tied for first place in terms of Zulip votes, we'll have to have an "instrument off" which I honestly would kinda love.
Your instrument doesn't have to be weird, it would just be more fun if it was.
Your instrument does have to somehow work in a web browser, as much as possible without any external hardware (i.e. it can be MIDI compatible but shouldn't rely on a specific piece of gear).
As much as you can, try to submit original work that you created during the Wam Bam Jam (i.e. May 8th to May 9th period.)
It's ok to use existing libraries of course, and bits of code you had laying around, but it's not as fun if you submit something you've been working on for a year.
You can participate in teams, but you will have to figure out how to divide the pikocore or the zeptocore if you get / win either!
Don't submit hurtful/awful things. If in doubt, ask Recurse Faculty or Greg.