🚧 Help Wanted: Whether you're a coder, designer, maker, or musician, your contributions are more than welcome!
In addition to making your own zicBox build, you can take part in developing and improving the existing ecosystem. Contributions can range from hardware optimizations, firmware enhancements, and UI/UX improvements to documentation and testing. The project thrives on collaboration and shared experimentation.
The best way to get started is to reach out on the Discord thread, let's have a quick chat and figure out how you can jump in. Don't be shy, there are plenty of ways to get involved, no matter your background or experience.
The zicBox community has already produced multiple great enclosure designs — mostly 3D-printable and easy to assemble. But innovation doesn’t stop there! We’d love to see experiments with CNC carving, laser-cut acrylics, or even metal housings. If you’re a designer or maker interested in refining the look and feel of Zic Pixel and other builds, your ideas are more than welcome.
The current PCB was designed in a self-taught, DIY style. It works well, but the project is ready to evolve into something more modular and flexible.
The next phase focuses on creating a small, reusable core board that includes everything needed to power a custom zicBox build:
- Integrated audio codec
- MIDI interface (with optocoupler isolation)
- Optional battery controller
- I/O expander for additional inputs and outputs
The goal is to make this board compatible with a range of platforms — from Raspberry Pi models to microcontrollers like the ESP32 — making it easy to prototype and build new instruments or devices.
Although there’s currently no active CM4-based project, exploring a custom CM4 carrier board remains a future goal once the modular base design is solidified.
If you’re experienced in hardware design or want to help refine and expand this next-generation board, your input is highly appreciated.
Skills welcome:
- PCB design (currently working on EasyEDA)
- SMD component selection and layout
- Designing for manufacturing or open-source hardware projects
zicBox is primarily written in C++. The code is structured around reusable libraries, with plenty of room to expand:
- Create new audio modules
- Develop UI components
- Improve performance or interconnectivity between modules
Beginner to expert, every contribution is welcome, as long you know your way around C++.
Tip
To simplify development, install a cross-compiler toolchain for ARM on your dev machine. In order to do this, let's use zicOs a custom OS create for zicBox, based on buildroot: https://github.com/apiel/zicOs
Install alongside to your zicBox project:
- dev folder
-- zicBox
-- zicOs
The configuration file is generated using TypeScript / JSX. Right now, the UI and the audio track configurations, are defined using some TS file that is then compiled to a JSON config file.
One long-term goal would be to build a web-based drag-and-drop UI for configuring and routing modules, making zicBox much easier to use.
Ways to help:
- Improve the existing TS-based config generator and polish the current UI
- Work on UI/UX for a future drag-and-drop editor
Good design makes a huge difference, not only in how zicBox looks, but in how easy and enjoyable it is to use.
We’re looking for help with:
- UX Design: Simplifying and improving the user interface while keeping CPU usage minimal. Clean, low-overhead UI/UX patterns are key, thoughtful layout and flow.
- Visual Design: Logos, icons, UI assets, and visual elements for both the app and the GitHub/docs.
- Promotional Material: Graphics or layouts for sharing zicBox on social media, in videos, or presentations.
Skills welcome:
- UX thinking for embedded or constrained environments
- Design tools like Figma, Sketch, or even pen & paper
- Visual identity and branding for open source projects
Documentation often falls behind as development moves fast. We need help keeping things up-to-date and beginner-friendly.
Great contributions include:
- Updating documentation with recent changes
- Writing clear guides, diagrams, and module descriptions
- Improving the README and setup instructions
- Helping with onboarding and dev setup notes
Using zicBox and exploring its capabilities is a valuable form of contribution! You can help by testing features, reporting bugs, and creating preset examples or full projects.
Things to do:
- Create presets or musical setups
- Try new builds and report bugs or suggestions
- Share use cases and feedback
zicBox is best understood when seen in action. If you're into video content, your help is gold.
Ideas for video contributions:
- Walkthroughs and feature overviews
- Performance demos or live jams
- Setup tutorials and build guides
- Showcasing what zicBox can do!