At his Ramsgate-based This Museum is (Not) Obsolete, YouTube artist Look Mum No Computer has a multitude of incredible inventions, writes Marijke Hall

A Furby ended up in a washing machine recently.

But, neither the deluge of soapy water or the spin-dry cycle finished it off. And like some kind of Gremlins-esque nightmare it was pulled from the drum still squawking.

It’s no surprise then that when we came across the Furby Organ, built by Youtube star Look Mum No Computer (@lookmumnocomputer) - aka Sam Battle - we found it as creepy as we did impressive.

Each of its 44 Furbies, with their own synth voice, comes to life as the organ is played. Horrifying, really.

But it’s actually just one of the many eccentric yet brilliant creations by inventor Battle, who builds amazing musical machines and mashes up seemingly obsolete electrical technology like never before.

We’re talking anything from synth bikes to flame throwing keyboards. There was also that Teletubby Tidal Wave at the recent Ramsgate Festival of Sound and the epic Gameboy Megamachine synthesiser.

This interesting line of work by Battle, which started as a hobby, has seen him gain quite the online following on both Youtube (he’s got almost half a million subscribers) and Instagram.

His videos have racked up millions of views enabling him to launch a Patreon, which has helped him reach yet another goal - opening a museum, a dream inspired by his grandparents.

It’s in Ramsgate and called This Museum is (Not) Obsolete. It’s filled with some stuff you’ll likely have never heard of with big knobs and difficult names, alongside items resigned to the history books making a new and improved appearance.

Battle says he’d always joked about the idea of opening one, but had no idea how to do it. Until he realised he’d become quite the hoarder.

“Be it videos, parts for machines or just habit, or an interest about a mysterious machine at a car boot sale or a 99p item on eBay with no bids, I have ended up with a lot of interesting junk,” he explains.

“I started to build up quite a lot of overheads storing these things after they were looked at in a video or built for a project, and it just seemed an awful shame that they were gathering dust.”

After a chat with volunteers at the Micro Museum in Ramsgate who were looking to downsize, he soon had a venue. The two museums are next to each other on Church Hill.

After initially getting cold feet last year due to the pandemic, he stuck with the idea and opened for his first season back in August, and things are going well.

Already people are coming along to have a look at the incredible electrical creations he has made.

And to think it all started during his school days when he began “figuring out electronics”.

“The school had a nice skip that was surprisingly full of interesting stuff,” Battle says. “One day there was a guitar in there so I used it as the basis for an experiment.

“After that it kept on just getting more and more involved.”

A few years later he started to collect Furbies from car boot sales with the plan of making something and a few years after that he had that lightbulb moment.

“I came up with a good idea for them, that idea being each Furby is a note and as you hit a key, one of the Furbies sings its assigned notes,” he explains. “It’s a similar story for the Teletubbies. I had started to slowly collect up a pile of those too from car boot sales and the likes without a plan, knowing an idea would one day turn up.”

And it did.

“I was putting together This Museum Is (Not) Obsolete a few months back and I showed round the organisers of the Ramsgate Festival of Sound and they saw the shelf of 50 Teletubbies and asked what my plan was with them.

“I made one up off the top of my head there and then and said I’ll make them do a long Mexican wave, a tidal wave!”

His creations, maybe deemed madcap by some, highlight the misconception that something obsolete is no longer useful.

With technology progressing so quickly these days, things get out of date quicker and society has become somewhat throwaway.

“This is one thing I hope people take away from watching the videos and coming to the museum,” Battle says. “When something doesn’t work anymore or it has outlived its use, it does not mean it's useless and destined for the bin.

“People have brought things into the museum and we chuck a bunch of ideas at them, give them a few electronic components and hopefully they will find a use.

“There are some dangers obviously - don’t mess around with items that plug into the mains if you don't know what you are doing, but small battery powered appliances and toys are fun, and it's always interesting to see what’s inside that could be used for other projects or machines.”

He admits he has a love/hate relationship with his creations, with many long days and nights of hard work spent building them in his living room.

“Now that the museum is open I can see how people react to things I have built,” he explains. “I like them equally but it's nice to see what people make of them.

“The Circuit Bent Speak and Spell goes down well and the glow in the dark Etch A Sketch, which is made from a piece of 1970s laboratory equipment.”

And of course, visitors - and Battle - love those Teletubbies.

“That’s the latest big project so maybe I just like it the most because it's new,” he laughs.

He’s come a long way since Look Mum No Computer started out as a hobby, so what’s the next inspired project for Battle?

“Right now the biggest goal is to fill the museum with as many fun and educational items as possible,” he says. “It’s about making it a living, breathing museum which is worth a visit for all ages to hopefully inspire and think a bit about things that have become somewhat obsolete.”

For more about This Museum is (NOT) Obsolete see this-museum-is-not-obsolete.com.