You know how drummers tap desks, objects, and anything around them incessantly, often unaware of the fact that they’re doing it, until people get annoyed? Well, now you don’t need a drummer around: you can program a Game Boy to do the same thing.

Jowan Sebastian has built a brilliant, elegant application for Game Boys called kBANG. Wire up a Game Boy to other objects — like solenoids, simple mechanical devices that can perform a tapping action — and you’ve got a real-world drum machine. Enough glitchy beats: physical objects become percussion.

kBANG: Game Boy Drum Machine

Here it is in action:

If you want to try this yourself, he has posted a ROM, but you’ll be on your own building the interface.

Related:
music albums and synths on Game Boy, a tracker-style music app for Nintendo DS, and, very much along these lines, how to build a mechanical “sequencer” controlled by Game Boy.

Thanks to Pedro Marques for the heads-up!