World 5 · Messages · Guide 5 of 5Free guide
Make: The Drum Machine
Every drum listens for its colour. You write the program that plays them.
Meet the plan
This is a project: no new block. Each drum on the stage has a program under a 📬 hat — when it hears its colour, it hits. Your monkey is the drummer. Its program sends the colours in order, inside a forever loop, so the beat goes on. The order of your sends is the rhythm.
Red is the drum. Blue is the bell. Turn your sound on.
See it work
The monkey's loop sends red, then blue, round and round. Turn your sound on and watch which drum answers which colour.
🥁
🔔
Red, the drum jumps. Blue, the bell jumps. The monkey never touched either of them — it only sent messages, and each drum's own program did the rest.
Your turn
Now you're the programmer. Play the beat on the card.
Drum Machine: can you play boom, ding, ding?
Play 🔴 🔵 🔵 — boom, ding, ding — round and round.Solve it with 4 blocks or fewer → ⭐⭐⭐0 blocks
The drum's program
The bell's program
Blocks
Your program
Go further
Can you make your own beat?
Try red, red, blue. Or put a ⏳ between two sends for a rest. Every order of colours is a different rhythm, and a forever loop plays it for as long as you like. On this page the card asks for boom, ding, ding — but the drums will play anything you send them.
For grown-ups
A sequencer that sends timed messages to instruments is exactly how real drum machines and music software work — MIDI is a message protocol, and every note is a message.
Keep going
Next: World 6 · Make a gameWhat makes a game a game? →Where this goes
Make a game other kids can play
The blocks on this page are a first taste. In a Kubrio project your kid builds a real game — powers, triggers, levels and all — and other kids get to play it.