Final Project Journal

My idea is to create a device that interacts with environmental parameters to produce simple tone progressions from the read data /or modify a generative piece of music. Hence, it can be a device that hobbyists, experimental music producers/composers, and people who practice mindfulness meditations could use to various degrees.

The following is the project's soundscape:

1) The chords are determined by "sonifying" the light intensity.
2) The velocity of the notes is determined by Humidity.
3) The ultrasonic distance detunes the notes and controls how distinct they are from each other.
4) The sample period and sample size are user-controlled using knobs.
5) temperature controls the octave of the reading; the lower the temperature, the lower the octave, hence, the darker the sound.

And Manual Buttons allow the user to play with the tones if wanted.

I used Autodesk Fusion360.

1. I started by estimating the dimensions of my device with the aid of the minimum value prototype we made earlier in the diploma.

2. The plan was to 3D print the part, so I made the design without any T-Slots or joints. However, after slicing it on Cura, the body part took more than 110 grams, which exceeds the limits of the material we're allowed to use.

3. So, I started again. But this time with the sketches instead of the 3D approach to things.

• After designing the basic building blocks of a simple box, I still wanted to pay homage to vintage cassette players. So, I decided to make a side resemble a cassette case.

• And then, I made the 3D printed legs/supports using the extrude tool.

• Then, I imported the components I would mount from GrabCad (the ultrasonic sensor, the pushbuttons, the LDR, and the Arduino board). I also imported the small breadboard to make sure it would fit within the enclosure.

• After that, I changed the appearance of the enclosure and exported the sketches as DXF files.

1. First, I defined the function whirr(), which would produce a whirring sound once the device is on. I put it in setup() because I want it to execute once.

2. Then, I copied the ultrasonic sensor's function from TinkerCad and used the DHT library to get values from the digital sensors (the ultrasonic sensor and the Humidity and Temperature Sensor).

3. I started by declaring some arrays that would store the data values obtained from the sensors, or the input components, in a more general sense.

4. Then, I set param5 and param6, the sample size and sample period, to be initially 10 and 1000. So that 10 seconds after the device is powered, 10 notes sampled at a rate of 1000 milliseconds will play.

5. That way, the user gets a feel about whether they want to modify it or not.

6. I decided to use a simple buffer-like process from the millis() function instead of the delay function.

7. The buffer starts if the time passed is more than or equal to the sample period. After each sample period, it prints the sentence "taking sample number x" and stores the sensors variables into arrays.

8. Once the list fulls, as dictated by the sample size the user specifies through the knob, it prints the array that was sonified directly: light intensity in this mode.

9. Then comes the sonification itself

10. to calculate the note duration, take one second divided by the note type. (e.g. quarter note = 1000 / 4, eighth note = 1000/8, etc)

11. The temperature change changes the octaves of the tones, making the coldest temperatures the (darkest) sounds.

12. to distinguish the notes, set a minimum time between them. (here the note's duration minus a detuning parameter dictated by the ultrasonic sensor)

Mr. Ahmed Shelbaya the Lab Manager suggested that I declare functions to tidy up the code and make it more presentable. He also suggested that I save different versions separately (Version Control) so that the code won't be lost and changes would be easily tracked by me and other people who would read it in the future.

My peers Eman and Hadeer suggested that I use knobs on the potentiometers for better control and also as an aesthetic choice.

At some initial stage of ideation, I had the idea to control and modulate pre-existing musical samples, so I got an mp3 module but I couldn't operate it so my peer Ahmed Mahfouz helped me with understanding its functions, and it turned out later to be not useful for the application I was going for.

To use an LDR instead of an LDR module, Mr. Ahmed Khaled suggested that I revise voltage divider circuits since this is what the LDR circuit relies on.

If I had more time i would have achieved the nice to have features, and experimented more with the sound output.

I think working on a more complex soundscape could result in more interesting sounds rather than the simple ones I ended up with, especially since I did the second mode on pure data, which other creators used to develop something more complex like the organelle

Also, I was thinking about levels of abstraction for the user interface. In a way that it could have pure analog sounds that don't necessarily use the Arduino (like Stylophones for example) and then connecting the Arduino would fortify the sound and add more features, and so on with connecting it to the computer or an analog synthesizer.