This is frikin’ sweet. The wire recorder was invented by Danish engineer Valdemar Poulsen in 1898 was the precursor to the cassette tape and video tape. It started showing up around the 1930′s in dictaphones and other lo-fi office equipment.  Fast-forward to today:  this DIY wire recorder kit lets you transform the sound of you voice (or anything else for that matter) into magnetic charges, and then play the sound back by swiping your hand.

But here’s the cool part – once you put this kit (from Gakken) together, you set the recording head on top of any metal surface that will hold a magnetic charge, drag the unit across the surface and speak into the microphone.

You can record on anything from a metal tabletop to a kitchen knife to the side of your 10 speed bike to store your ultra- secret messages. Once you have the recording in place, you just flip the playback switch and you’ll hear your lo-fi voice played back as you move the magnetic head along the surface.

Check out the (Japanese) video below for a demo:

Like I said, frikin’ sweet.

You can get the kit here for $38.99. The instructions are all in Japanese, but it seems like there are enough pictures to get the gist of what needs to be done.

Just don’t leave this thing on near your Video tapes.

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