notePad
Class Project (Individual)
Class: Critical Practices (NM C166, UC Berkeley)
Timeline: January 2022- May 2022
Skills used: Brainstormed ideas + sketches, Sourced parts, designed models with CAD, fabricated prototypes with laser cutters and 3D printers, electronics (soldering) & programming with Micropython
Critical Practices is a New Media and Art Practice class centered around creating socially-engaged art with digital fabrication tools. In our final project, we were tasked to create a wearable device that would allow us to possess a superpower. Inspired by my love for producing and playing music, for me this was to play piano melodies whenever I want. I designed a wearable mini keyboard made of limit switches, a microcontroller, and a neatly designed laser-cut cardboard enclosure to house it all. The result was a compact keyboard that I could use to play an octave of melodies in a cute video-game like sound.
Watch the video below to learn more or view the project report here.
Initial sketch of my idea
Low-fidelity mockup of idea to figure out scale, fit of limit switches as keys
First CAD model on Fusion 360 using Sheet Metal modeling tool to model cardboard bending
First iteration of laser cut models, varying in fits for the speaker and limit switches
First iteration with components installed - housing was too small for the wires
Finished second iteration with 3D printed parts to keep lid closed, plus an additional volume knob and LED power indicator
What I would improve on
1. Creating an implementation that does not involve a microcontroller (like in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ig_6o9bMABA)
2. Adding a feature that would allow recording and playback on the device.
By sampling the note pressed at a fixed frequency and storing this data in an array that could be played back when the user presses on a separate button. The “record” and “play” modes would be implemented via a state machine architecture.
3. Adding a feature that would allow recording of key presses that translates to a MIDI file that can be sent via Wifi to a computer via MQTT.
By converting the sampled array of notes and frequencies into a data structure pairing the frequency and the time in seconds. Then this data would be converted into a MIDI in some way using existing open source code (would need to research how this would be possible!)