MIDI Project - Fabrication

February 8, 2021
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Tangible Interaction

1 Material Prep

I ordered lots of materials last week. One arrived earlier than expected, but some of them were delayed. When I got the cookie can, I surprisingly found that the diameter of cookie can was not 8'' as they showed in their item details. So I had to make a cylinder by myself. Due to the delay of small steel balls, I only had one ball to test for now.

Notes: Steel balls are 6mm diameters.

2 Fabrication

I made the panel and the enclosure by cardboard and standoffs. Below is the structure of new panel.

Then I tested the music box. It worked better than the last one due to the decreasing gap between light sensors and paper with holes.

3 Next Steps

I tested a version which added potentiometer as calibrator of the light sensors (controlling the threshold so to speak). And you can see in the functionality testing video, the sensitivities of #F #G #A notes are less than the others. So some adjustments code-wise are needed to make these notes easier to trigger.

Also, code need improving in aesthetic aspect. Currently it's still to early to tell if the music box works good or not when drilling all holes. When I get the hollow hole punch, I'll test it and may change the MIDI messages if it doesn't sounds good.

So the tasks in the following week:

  • (Before Friday) Calibrate the threshold of #F #G #A notes separately in code.
  • (Saturday) Finish a complete prototype to see the result.
  • Revising fabrication side (adding places for USB cable, switch, potentiometer).
  • Revising codes if needed.

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