Check this out. Watch to the very end for some new twists on the popular: “Mystery Box” or “Leave me Alone box” I’m thinking about incorporating some of this in my own version. Very cool.
Compare to this one I made for an as yet unfinished art presentation project using openFrameworks. I haven’t finished installing electronics. Note the Parallax Propeller development board
Here are a few more I found with a quick bingle
http://makezine.com/23/uselessmachine/