This battery powered electronic musical instrument is a descendant of the theremin and can be played without contact from the musician. This small instrument contains two infared (IR) sensors that measure proximity. One sensor controls the note, while the other controls the octave that is played through the speaker in the front. The tone is reflected by one of seven colors that illuminates the center area and highlights a small indicator located on the top panel. Check out the video.

Theremin Style Instrument from Nick Hardeman on Vimeo.

I have posted the source code, some videos and pics as well, check out the original post.

Last week I posted my project, the Spatialized Umbrella v01. 5 speakers and LEDs are mounted inside of the umbrella, around the users’ head, allowing for sound and light spatialization. The ‘raindrop’ samples play in a loop, each speaker playing their own unique raindrop. The LEDs light up the speaker playing at that moment. The tempo of the loop is controlled by a long-range Sharp Infrared range finder. The closer an object is to you, the faster the loop plays. If an object is close enough and a threshold is reached, a lightning sequence is triggered. Best part: COMPLETELY SAFE FOR USE IN THE RAIN.

I absolutely could not fit an entire Arduino in the canopy of the umbrella, especially because I need it to be able to close if I wanted this project to be viable at all. This (as well as cost) was the reason I chose to use a MapDuino for this application. Here are some images, in this form, I soldered a 28-pin IC socket to the PCB (bare, from radioshack) as well as the rest of the circuit, completely contained on the one board measuring less than half the size of a full Arduino board.

About one week ago, the very first version of the MapDuino (read: Remapped Arduino) was put together.  Fully functional, fully breadboarded, fully efficient, and fully CHEAPER. Here I’ve uploaded code that takes data from a SharpIR rangefinder and fades R,G, and B values of a tri-color LED.  more info soon…