Circuit bending, the creative alteration of toys and other electronic devices so they can produce new and unusual sounds, is being featured at the Bent Festival in New York.

The Darth Vader toy, for instance, was essentially an audio processor that deepened its owner’s voice. Bender Thomas Uliasz added an input jack and pitch-control knob and renamed it the Dark Side Box. Connected to a rhythm machine, the circuit-bent toy can convert a mechanical cadence into a snarling, stomping beat.