Musical Instrument (Nourhane & AYA)

CONCEPT:

This assignment was complicated in terms of finding a concept for it. We had a couple of cool ideas to do at the beginning (ie. soda cans drums) but their implementation was a fail. We decided to use our favorite part of the kit: the ultrasonic sensor, and get a concept out of it.

Both our previous assignments used ultrasonic sensors as distance detectors. So we thought to base this assignment on the same concept.

This musical instrument is inspired by the Accordion instrument (with a twist):

Using a plastic spiral, we are mimicking the same movement of an accordion to produce different notes. The distance between the hand and the sensor is what is producing the different notes (each distance range was assigned a different note). The circuit has a switch to turn on/off the instrument.

Here is a video of what I’m talking about:

IMG_8161 2

CODE:

Again assembling the circuit was a hard part but it worked! The code is pretty simple and consists of an ultrasonic sensor and a switch. The `loop` function repeatedly triggers the ultrasonic sensor, measures the distance to an object, converts it to centimeters based on the speed of sound. Depending on these values, it determines whether to play a musical note. If the distance is outside a defined range or the force is below a certain threshold, it stops playing the note. Otherwise, if sufficient force is applied, it maps the distance to an array of musical notes and plays the corresponding note using a piezo buzzer.

int trig = 10;
int echo = 11;
long duration;
long distance;
int force;

void setup() {
  pinMode(echo, INPUT);

  pinMode(trig, OUTPUT);

  Serial.begin(9600);
}

void loop() {
  digitalWrite(trig, LOW); //triggers on/off and then reads data
  delayMicroseconds(2);
  digitalWrite(trig, HIGH);
  delayMicroseconds(10);
  digitalWrite(trig, LOW);
  duration = pulseIn(echo, HIGH);
  distance = (duration / 2) * .0344;    //344 m/s = speed of sound. We're converting into cm



  int notes[7] = {261, 294, 329, 349, 392, 440, 494}; //Putting several notes in an array
  //          mid C  D   E   F   G   A   B

  force = analogRead(A0); //defining force as FSR data


  if (distance < 0 || distance > 50 || force < 100) { //if not presed and not in front

    noTone(12); //dont play music

  }

  else if ((force > 100)) {  //if pressed

    int sound = map(distance, 0, 50, 0, 6);  //map distance to the array of notes
    tone(12, notes[sound]);  //call a certain note depending on distance

  }


}

REFLECTION AND IMPROVEMENTS:

Though I found this assignment difficult, I enjoyed the process of implementation and finding a concept. If I could improve the instrument, I would work on the notes and their frequency to sound more natural. Now it sounds like an EKG machine with notes instead of an instrument, but I think it fulfills the requirement of fictional instrument.