Two of the drum machine examples that impressed me the most are Groove Pizza and TR-808 re-creation one. Groove Pizza has a very simple, and visually appealing interface. It managed to spatially map every single beat generated by different percussion instruments into points in 2D circular plane, aka, pizza. One cycle through the pizza represents one measure/bar. The number of pizza slices represents the number of subdivisions in a measure. The points are then connected to form different shapes, most of the time symmetrical, given the repetitive nature of rhythm. Therefore, notes on a linear timeline are formed onto a more recognizable spatial arrangement in front of players. Different genres of music have different shape patterns on the pizza, which tells player a lot about the rhythmic characteristics of that genre. I can see this application has great educational potential in music education.
However the project I had the most fun playing with is the Roland TR-808 recreation. It took me a while to figure out how to use it and what each knob and button are for. I looked up the original physical model and noticed they look pretty much the same. This project lacks originality and creativity as it's simply a virtual duplication of the physical machine. However by playing with the web version I was able to get the gist of how the physical drum machine works without having to visit a store or obtaining a physical product. I can see this project being applied to many other musical interfaces by demonstrating how to use them in a very accessible web environment, so that both amateur and professional producers are able to "try out" the machine virtually before they decide which instruments suit them the best.
Here's a screen recording of my first TR-808 creation:
https://youtu.be/1TAtorV5uqw