Location: Cambridge, MA | 09/2021 - 12/2021

 

This project was part of a three week long final instrument build for the general education class "How Sound Works: Engineering the Acoustical World." The goal of this project was to make a 2-octave MIDI controller that could read a percussion mallet impact and generate a respective MIDI output that also takes into account how hard the bar was hit. This project was done solo, and involved material selection, permanent circuitry, force sensitive resistors, an Arduino MKRZERO, and its respective code that would read signals and produce MIDI signals. This project was semi-successful, as although it is able to produce a correct MIDI output based on which note is being played and how hard it is being played, the instrument doesn't work very well with mallets, and instead works great with fingers and hands.