Overview / Usage

Ever wanted to build your own electronic musical instrument? Let us create a musical instrument that doesn't require any touch at all! We here play with the intensity of light to create good musical notes. It consists of six coffee cups. Wave your hands over the air to trigger notes; light levels control volume and vibrato. Each cup represents a different note.

Methodology / Approach

A photoresistor is a special component whose resistance fluctuates based on visible light. Depending on your environment, a photoresistor may be able to sense fluctuations caused by movements as far as a few feet away. We correlate each fluctuation of light intensity with a musical note and create an instrument.

Each light sensor needs to be connected to an analog-input pin on the Arduino. The circuit layout is identical to what we did in the last step, but multiplied by six.

As for the physical build, I found it useful to begin by inserting the light sensors into the cups first, and then attach the cups to the base second.

To insert the light sensors into the cups, I used a sewing needle to puncture two properly-spaced holes in the bottoms of each paper coffee cup. Thread the light sensor through so that it's facing in the proper direction. Depending on the size and shape of the cups, this may be difficult; you can use tweezers if you have difficulties.

To attach each cup to the base, I once again used a needle to poke holes through the cardboard, for the legs of the photoresistors to go through. Then I used liberal amounts of duct tape to keep everything together. You can improvise here quite effectively: try using hot glue instead, for instance. For me, the black duct tape ended up being part of the overall aesthetic.

You can see from the second photo that the circuit is formed with a mass of alligator clips. Like I said, this was designed to be a temporary build; if I were to do it again, I would be sure to actually solder things, route my wiring properly, etc. Even if you go the alligator clip route, be sure to use liberal amounts of tape to keep things relatively organized.

Technologies Used

Photoresistors

Microcontroller

Some kind of box-like object to hide the wiring. I used the cardboard lid to a box of printer paper.

basic electronic components like Aligator clips, wires, etc

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Repository

https://github.com/DikshitaDesai/illumaphone