Piairno

• Worked in a large group setting, delegating tasks and collaborating closely with fellow teammates
• Researched various microcontrollers and hardware devices that could help mimic a piano’s tones
• Researched Arduino Unos and their abilities to produce tones natively
• Programmed in Arduino Code to produce various tones from the controller
• Experimented with the accelerometer and gyroscope to map out its functionality

THE AIR PIANO

With the aid of flex sensors and Arduino Unos, the concept of an “Air Piano” came to life during Carnegie Mellon University’s Build 18 Week 2015 (a week long hackathon for engineers at CMU).

In order to make the Piairno work, we used native libraries of the Arduino Unos to produce sounds that matched Piano notes. We matched the tone() command at various frequencies in order to produce the seven notes. Once we had the notes ready, we looked into the flex sensors and their functionality. Accelerometers and gyroscopes were also looked into, but were not implemented in time for the hackathon. For the flex sensors, we set a certain threshold in the middle for it to activate a respective tone. Once all the sensors were hooked up and soldered correctly, we sewed the sensors onto gloves. Since the arduinos needed to be present for the processing of tones, we also sewed the Arduino Unos to each respective glove.