Interactive Drums

Introduction to Arduino and Processing

Our final assignment for the Produino Seminar (Processing and Arduino) asked us to think of a way to join both the physical and digital parts of our lives and to develop a prototype that combined manual controls and digital feedbacks.
The production of sound and the importance of social interaction was something that inspired our project. We started by understanding how buttons can control sound in Arduino by making a piano like keyboard that would produce a different sound note when a button was pressed. From there, we learned that Arduino was not the ideal tool to use for producing sound but rather a good instrument to control it. Using the buttons on the small Arduino board also became a hassle when it came to allowing more than one person to interact with our prototype which made us think that sensors would be a better solution to produce sound. These sensors would pick up vibrations and would send a signal to both the Arduino card and to Processing to activate a sound and image.

With the sensors in mind, the want to produce sound, and the wish to have people to interact with each other, we came up with the idea of making a drum prototype that could be used by more than one person. The drum would not only make sound, but would also manipulate projections.
At first, we thought the sound could control the movement and color of simple shapes produced in Processing, but to further promote social interaction, we choose to use a camera to display the people playing with the drum to both themselves and the audience; the users were watching themselves play and the audience was able to see them both physically and through a manipulated projection.

The camera had a filter that made the user look pixelated with the use of points. The points were then manipulated (color, scale, position, etc) with the way the user made sound.
We invited our classmates to interact with the prototype and witnessed the fun they producing sound and projections.

Team: Alvaro Meza, Johana Monroy, Javier Montalvo

Tutors: Agnel Muñoz, Angelos Chronis