Instrument Test 1 from Noah King on Vimeo.

After installing a sound library on the Arduino, I have begun to conceive musical instruments with body-gesture inputs. This simple test was to create a Theramin-like instrument that plays different notes based on the distance between your hand and the device.

This is the first successful Processing sketch using object-orientated-programming. Adding a bit of random to a 2-dimensional array of colored squares, the oscillating pattern of color change degrades over time until the whole window appears to be random (this takes several minutes). I still haven’t thought of a way to make this interactive.

To watch the actual program, click this link to the Live Processing Sketch

Processing – Interactive Drawing Application from Noah King on Vimeo.

This processing application is the first one in which I have successfully used functions. In the past I have used the controlP5 library to add a user-controlled variable to the top level of the sketch. This time I explored writing my own code to have fully-interactive, user controlled settings. This allows for several distinctively different drawing methods to be bundled into one program and accessed by clicking on buttons and sliders. The end drawing experience is decent, but mostly this was about the UI and the organization of the functions. I hope to program the sliders as objects, and then have many more variables to control, like color saturation and brightness, drawing tool shape, eraser, etc.

To try out the program yourself, follow this link for the Live Processing Sketch .

Source Code Here

Robotic Drummer – Solidworks design workflow from Noah King on Vimeo.

The second attempt at the Robotic Drummer project began on the computer in Solidworks. First I built a library of common parts, like the servos and switches, and then I designed a way to efficiently get the parts to assemble together. This helped work around some of the construction problems I had run into the week before, and also took out a lot of the guess work of getting parts to combine together in a strong and light-weight configuration. Once the CAD version was complete, I used it to make measurements off of, which lead to a problem-free day of fabricating the physical model.

Robotic Drummer – 4 servo configuration, pre-test setup from Noah King on Vimeo.

Working off of the CAD data, I built the pot-switch controller box and daisy-chained together the servo motors into the two arm setup. There was a lot of wiring and assembling to do, so I shot this video after finishing the setup of the parts and before official sending code to the arduino and seeing if anything worked.

Robotic Drummer – 4 servo test from Noah King on Vimeo.

Last week I assembled some code to get the 2 servos to move and be controlled by the POT switches. In this test, I expanded the code to work with four motors and four switches. After sending it to the Arduino, the robot worked fine, except for some loose connections between the board and the motors. I plan to solder these terminals so that they are not so loose. Additionally, solenoid actuators need to be added to the end of the arms so that a drum stick can get fired down towards a drum surface.

I am particularly interested in created computation based art-making tools. This processing sketch is a drawing tool that creates circles of different colors (randomly selected) and different sizes (based on the speed of the mouse) that follow the position of your mouse. Click the mouse to start and stop drawing.

These captured frames show some of the images that can be created.

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Circle Drawing Tool – Live and in Action from Noah King on Vimeo.

By moving the mouse quickly or slowly, the types of circles being made are drastically different. When the mouse moves off the screen and then re-enters, enormous circles are made that almost take up the whole screen. Turning drawing mode on and off by clicking the mouse gives the user that ability to make very deliberate strokes.

Live Processing Sketch
Source Code

Working on this collaborative project with Fu was a lot of fun. He has a design sensibility that is very playful and humorous, so together we built on his character from last week to make it much more interactive and funny. Overall, I think we were very successful!

Mostly I contributed the swinging hammer component. It all began with a simple test to see if I could get an object to rotate.

Live Processing Sketch of Hammer Test
Source Code of Hammer Test

Once this hammer motion was added into the joint sketch, there was a bit of tweaking to get it to work with his objects, to activate it with a button, and to animate the aftermath of his character being struck.

Fu + Noah make a Robot fly from Noah King on Vimeo.

Live Processing Sketch of Final Interactive Project
Source Code

One group of musicians and music producers I have a great respect and appreciation for is The Neptunes, aka Pharell Williams and Chad Hugo.  From what I’ve read, they have an unorthodox process for making music.  They develop their songs using live instruments, but then record and master their songs using entirely digital, synthesized sound.  This gives them the crisp, perfect sounds they are famous for.  However, I find this process to be counter intuitive, especially as someone who is not formally trained to play live instruments.

My idea for the Fantasy Project is to create a Robotic Drummer who takes an input stream of notes / sounds and plays them on a real drum set.  In essence, this is the opposite of what the Neptunes do, and I suspect that it would make the experience of recording music with live instruments more accessible to people, like myself, who do not possess such skills.

Watching a human play the drums can be quite amazing.  In the below video, an experienced drummer wows the viewer.

Reggae/DNB from Xtruist Art on Vimeo.

In this video, a human drummer dsiplays his sense of rhythm, technical precision, and stylized playing. Much of this is possible because of the complex movements of the human arm and because of the sophistication of the human brain. My design is to take the thinking from our brains and supplement it with the dexterity and precision of Robotic arms.

Robotic Drummer – Motion Study from Noah King on Vimeo.

A human arm is quite complex in the way that it moves. This movement can be simulated using a robotic arm in three sections. Using 7 servos for 7 axes of movement, a full range of motion would be achievable.

This design could either work in real-time with a keyboard with each key mapped to each drum strike, or the device could have a pre-recorded drum sequence programmed into it and then it could play back the sounds.

Double Arm Robot Drummer – Test 1 from Noah King on Vimeo.

I devised a simpler design to continue exploring the use of servos with robotic arms.

This design has two separate arms, each one pivoting with the intent of striking another object, making a drum sound.

This initial test was to directly control the position of the arm with the position of the potentiometer. It was successful, but would make playing successive drum beats both tedious and difficult.

Double Arm Robot Drummer – Test 2 from Noah King on Vimeo.

This second test explored a looped movement, independent of an analog control dial.

Both arms successfully looped their movement back and forth. You can see the metal cup and glass bottle in near-striking range, ready to make two unique drum sounds.

Double Arm Robot Drummer – Test 3 from Noah King on Vimeo.

This final test was largely successful, but it also identified a limitation of programming with a “for” loop.

In this setup, each arm is controlled by an analog dial, where programmatically the speed of the arm increases as the dial position increases.

In the end, this only made for two different arm velocities, but not two different rhythmic paces. Because both actions were programmed into the same “for” loop, the faster of the two arms must wait until the slower arm finishes moving, before looping into a second movement.

Although enormous progress was made on this project, a different programming strategy will be needed to get the result I want.

Robotic Arm – Test 1 from Noah King on Vimeo.

After facing enormous challenges with the DC motors, I thought I would give the servos a try. To do so, I constructed a simple robotic arm with three sections and two joints. The whole construction was cobbled together and fairly rickety, which lead to some weight and balance issues.

But the servos did work, and I liked the use of the analog dials to control the movement.

Robotic Arm – Test 2 from Noah King on Vimeo.

In this test, the robotic arm waves nicely, but still the balance was a major issue. I tried to use counter weights to keep the arm’s lower limb from bending over, but then the whole construction became too heavy and the servo was no longer powerful enough to move the second joint.

This lead to the decision to build a simpler set of arms for the next test.

Motorized Car – Test 1 from Noah King on Vimeo.

I played with remote control cars quite a bit when I was a boy, so some part of me desperately wants to be able to make my own R/C vehicle.

This first test was one of many where I ran into gearing problems. Without enough torque at the wheels, not much happens.

Motorized Car – Test 2 from Noah King on Vimeo.

In this test, I at least got one of the wheels to spin, but still there was a problem with torque and general loss of power through the gearing and mechanical construction. I want to try using real gears, rather than rubber bands, as I think it will translate the power more effectively.

Motorized Car – Test 3 from Noah King on Vimeo.

After constructing a cute little tri-cycled body, I reworked the gearing in this test. Although both wheels did spin, as soon as they were placed on a surface, the friction was too great and no movement occurred.

This was the lest of the car tests. I need to find a good gearing solution before proceeding.