Coding Update (Yay!)

Woohoo! Jake has gotten a lot of headaches and should probably take some time to not be looking at a screen or arduino board, but that's part of the game!

With lots of time and effort, 300 lines (which probably could've been shorter using arrays, less comments and what not) of code have been written so far. More testing and tweaking will be done in the next few days to make sure we have a working prototype before we present in a few days!

We are going to have a second board for tutorial mode, which will independently control the lights. This code is not done yet, but should be easy, just some delays, digitalWrites, and a check for the switch states.

Here is the code  that is done so far:

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More updates to come, of course

Quick Thanksgiving Update

So we handed the pads and rims off to Jake for the Thanksgiving break to hopefully finish up our coding so we can finish assembling everything else when we all come back. We also received our finished 3D printed parts of our drum stick holders! here is a picture of an example of what they will do (hold drum sticks =P). these will be painted and attached after the break once we know where to place them to keep them from interfering with the pads.

That's it for now, so have a great Thanksgiving everyone and take it easy

Fresh Paint Job

Hey everyone! So this weekend Eric and Brett got together again and did some painting! we primed everything (the picture of everything being gray) and then we spray painted almost everything a gloss black. it looks good. and then for a little flavor, the bolts that are showing on top of the drum rims were painted a gloss gold color. we had to spice things up a little bit. we will be getting together again really quick today to grab them (since they had to dry) and contact cement the drum pads into the rims. once that is done, we will be handing them off to Jake to take them home during thanksgiving break and finish the coding needed. we are getting closer to the finish line, and we still have some things to do, so we are pushing hard! more updates to come. Take it easy friends

Circles, Holes, and Progress

Hey everybody! On 11/18, Eric and Brett went to talk to one of the machinists at UML to see if it was possible to cut a close-to-perfect 7 inch diameter circle out of the drum pad. We will be meeting with him tomorrow again with the drum pads and rims on hand to see if anything can be done. if not, we will just have to tin-snip them as close as possible to fit them into the drum rims.

Also on the 17th, Vlad and Brett went to Home Depot real quick to grab 3" long 1/4-20 screws and lock nuts, along with more contact cement to connect more of the project.

Brett also took the drum set home, set it up and (with a little help from dad) got all of the holes drilled for the drum pad rims. This included the holes in the rims as well as in the PVC structure to connect them. We also drilled a smaller hole within the middle of each drum rim so the wires of the piezo could exit the rim, enter the PVC piping, and run to the Arduino with minimal wires showing.

I believe that is all for now, more updates to come soon. Take it easy everyone.

Awwwwwww WORK-WORK

Ladies and gentlemen,

The construction has begun! Brett really cranked out the solidworks design of the drum set (with a little calculation help from Eric). Everyday is a continuous texting conversation about the electrical issues involved with the arduino. Jake is really getting headwind on the light portion of our design

Later on Saturday, Eric, Brett, and Jake met at Eric's parents house to begin cutting materials! Below is a variety of pictures of the construction of the drum rims and pipe assembly. It isn't finished yet, but a big chunk of the assembly was done!

Update Time!

So we have had a few things happen to progress towards actually making our drum set. Eric and Brett went out to Home Depot and grabbed 40 feet of PVC piping along with most of the PVC fittings we need to make the structure. Here is how we had to transport it!

Unicorn style. Yeah buddy.

Unfortunately, Home Depot did not have all of the fittings we needed, so we had to order them from Amazon.com for about $10. making the total cost of the pvc to be about $49. this now puts us over our $100 budget from the school, so everything past the 100 we will be splitting the cost of between the group members.

Eric has also obtained the sheets of metal circles we needed for the drum pads, so Brett and Vlad will be working on assembling the drum pads this weekend hopefully. at the same time Eric will be working on cutting and connecting the pvc to make our structure. Jake has been working on the coding we will need and will be picking up wire, transistors, and a wall outlet plug to supply our LED strips with 12V power.

I cant think of anything else to say, so thats all for the updates, and take it easy.

Hit a bump, but got it!

After a few hours of googling and experimentation, it works! the current code is dirty, so is the wiring, and timing, and set up, and most of it, but thats the wonder of prototyping! The fact is, I can hit a pad and it will light up an LED and play a note!

Knock Sensor

Proof of concept complete! Jake has gotten a piezo to turn on an LED with the A0 pin. Learning to solder and read schematics is fun!

Next stop, figuring out how to turn the digitalWrite(ledPin, HIGH); into a snare drum! Then into transistors for the 12V LED chains. Progress!

Thank you to:

http://www.learningaboutelectronics.com/Articles/Piezo-knock-sensor-circuit.php

for the help

Getting adjusted in GarageBand

Jake may have gotten a little distracted when he started working in garageband. Soon it will be played on a kit instead of a keyboard!

Midi Controlling

With a little research, it seems that it is definitely possible! This video just shows an example of controlling GarageBand with outputs from Arduino using other Hairless midi converting software. Replacing the loop with inputs from the pads should let us get exactly what we want.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Send-and-Receive-MIDI-with-Arduino/step5/Software-Solution-Serial-to-MIDI-Application/

This Instructables page goes through in some more detail

Learning How Not To Do Things

During Design lab...lab today group members Brett Harding and Eric Beauregard learned a little about blogging 101. Upon inspecting group "Soaring Sweets"'s blog, we realized that some groups simply just make boring blogs. We need to use their mistake as a lesson to continue to make our blog extra cool!


Here's Stewie Griffin playing some drums for your entertainment/motivation to see the release of light beats!


Potential date of picking up more materials to build the stand is this coming Saturday, and we have received the drum pedal and mouse pads in the mail! The drum pads will begin to be made shortly, but until then......take it easy.