Twitter Drummer
From Hackypedia
Contents |
[edit] Project Members
- Tallscreen (see the project homepage for more info)
[edit] Idea
A device which plays rhythms on actual percussion instruments, and responds to Twitter messages.
[edit] Hardware
The physical device consists of four solenoids (salvaged from HP laser printers) with 'drumsticks' which actually hit the instruments. These are driven from a 24V transformer (salvaged from a Canon printer), and controlled through a transistor interface by an Arduino with an Ethernet shield.
The instruments consist of a cowbell, two bongos, and a larger drum.
The actual drum part has been working for some time now, although I've refined it recently.
[edit] Software
Currently, the Arduino sketch holds the rhythm patterns as a string of 16 hexadecimal nybbles, each representing one semiquaver, with each instrument as one bit.
There are multiple patterns, and every bar each instrument chooses a random pattern, giving a huge range of combinations.
The drummer works in one of two ways: Originally it read an online PHP script which accessed Twitter and did most of the processing. Then version 2 did all the processing on the Arduino, so it connects direct to Twitter. For version 3, I'm thinking of going back to reading an external script, so I can incorporate lots of advanced features.
Arduino sketch to follow - soon!
[edit] Present Status
The device works fine. It's been shown at Playspace in Manchester, and Maker Faire UK 2011 in Newcastle.
Like I mentioned, I'm going back to reading a PHP script so I can do such things as allowing people to make up their own rhythms and so on.
