While at SVA we were given a lot of exposure early on to Arduino. I became particularly intrigued by the integration of input from physical sensors and output in light and musical tones.
One of my early projects was something that I called an "Infrared Ruler" that measured distance via an infrared light beam and sensor. The more light that came back, the closer the object. Here's a video:
The Infrared Ruler was cool, but it was very simple. For the final project in the course I worked with my classmate Luke on an instrument that we called a "Wearable Theremin," or a "Wearamin." A theremin is an instrument that relies on invisible radio wave manipulation to change pitch. In other words, move your hands around in space and suddenly you're creating Doctor Who theme music!
We knew that instead of relying on radio fields we could alter the code I'd used to build the IR ruler so that instead of a display with changing digits, we could make the output of the device an audio circuit with changing pitch or tone. With that in mind, we decided to build a wearable theremin that used the readings from infrared sensors to generate musical tones.
We wanted to use one sensor on each hand so that a musician could use turntables or another instrument and then add more layers by using the Wearamin without it getting in the way. After we had a working sensor prototype, we decided that instead of flapping our hands up and down, we could build a “staircase” setup that would let us move our hands horizontally along an X axis to make it easier and look a bit less nerdy. We also decided to embed lights beneath the apparatus to allow for a visually appealing responsive element along with the audio.
We fabricated the boxes using opaque acrylic and embedded them in a black base that would allow us to reposition the blocks depending on the effect we wanted without changing the lighting in the base. They were suspended above a chain of RGB LED's connected to an Arduino and a microphone, so that the volume of audio in the space would affect the light brightness. The other components were the infrared sensors and a second Arduino, which allowed the performer to change pitch and volume and also sported an "audio out" port that could go into speakers or any other audio device.
The final assembly was quite complicated inside but clean and simple on the outside. We chose and coded the color palette manually to offer a subtle "EQ" effect and allow for a warm and inviting light sculpture.
With the Wearamin, we experienced our first exhilarating success in the face of some serious code- and component-based frustration. We came up with a fun, interactive prototype that also looked near-professional. The interactivity had a few kinks, even in the final product, but I was still able to create a real piece of music using the prototype and a looping pedal. Video of that demonstration can be seen below (as well as two "how it's made" videos for reference).