What’s the big idea in designing new interfaces for music? Just about everything, judging from the finalist entries for our Futuristic Music Design Challenge. A sequencer with bubblegum balls? A synth that works with surface temperature data and maps? Microtonal guitars, sound-making boxes, Nintendo games, digitally-connected saws and tape on bicycle wheels? Gloves, buttons, lights, strings, turntables? Yep, we’ve pretty much got the gamut here. We told contestants to make the Second Space Age proud. Now we get to see how they hold up.

Check out some of the videos and photos of what’s to come to get a sense of the projects, and if you’re attending Yuri’s Night Bay Area, be sure to get there by 2:30pm to watch these artists compete with each other in front of our expert judging panel. (See the Yuri’s Night Bay Area event schedule.)

Join this event on Facebook — and say hi!

After the show, get up-close-and-personal with the artists later on at the Create Digital Music booth. On the same stage, at 3:30 pm, our friends at Instructables.com have a show-and-tell session for even more DIY goodness. And then there are the installations, acrobats, space things, major scientists and thinkers… and, of course, stick around for a huge lineup of incredible music all night long. I’m going to figure out how I can be three places at once, personally, because there’s loads I want to see.

See you Saturday afternoon, California-bound peoples. Those of you not lucky enough to be in the Bay Area, stay tuned right here for more online coverage following the competition — plus the winner.

Each year Urb Magazine picks the top 100 up and coming acts to watch in the next year. This time they have included bay area local and Yuri’s Night artist Tycho. You can pick up the 14th annual “Next 100″ issue on shelves now.

“The only thing more beautiful than the mesmerizing design and print work he creates under the ISO50 name might be Scott Hansen’s rich analog signal path. As Tycho, this San Francisco artist has an absolute lock on daydream downtempo, fusing thick, fuzzy beats with lush synths, samples and guitars. Buy the ticket, take the ride. RT - Urb Magazine”

Check out his video for “Dictaphone’s Lament” here: