DIY workshop
Today, we participated in an Arduino Workshop with Arthur Bennis from Hogeschool Arnhem and Nijmegen.Although he’s a Human-Computer Interaction professional by day, his hobby is creating DIY musical instruments. Our colleague Frank Kloos organized the workshop for us, as we were hoping to break free from abstract theory and participate in the making process. We got our hands busy with the Arduino Uno and the Dangershield from SparkFun.
First, we experimented using different types of sensors such as precision light sensors, touch sensors, potentiometers and distance sensors. Although none of us were programming experts, Arthur made it easy for us to follow along with the coding that was required in order to make the Arduino do what we wanted it to.
Dion and Marissa were quite excited to have early on made a light that added to the atmosphere of our workshop. They continued on to add another LED, and programmed the Arduino to flash like Christmas lights! Although this specific activity of making a holiday atmosphere has arguably limited direct relevance for the project, going through the motions of connecting wires to computers and testing how it works is absolutely essential.
After a lunch of boterhammen, we came back to the table and had some time to understand in what ways we can use the Arduino to communicate with the computer as it regards making music. Naturally, we discovered how many possibilities there are when we combine the sensors with a musical software program. The musical atmosphere is then in part determined by what the sensors detect.
Arthur used a wider combination of musical software than we’re used to seeing: Wave Window [a software oscilloscope], Soundflower [a tool that routes data between musical software programs] and Ableton Live [a virtual mix console/synthesizer rack]. However, we’re using Logic Pro 9 to start adding sounds to our ideas. Arthur will likely remain a useful resource as we continue adding interactivity to our concept.