Piezo Upgrade

The Piezos that we had previously been using worked fine, but were a bit inconsistent with their sensitivity, so we upgraded to the wider, flatter peizos that have greater surface sensitivity. They also fit more discretely under the road.

Piezo Experiment

Piezo experiment

Cardboard city

Idea for city ...

Solution!

So we CAN use Ardrumo but we don't want to make a drum kit. What we've decided is that drum sounds are also very effective as sound effects - i'e a floor drum's thud sound very much like a giant's footstep.

So this is what we've come up with:

SCENARIO
I (the user) am a giant stomping into a town that is caught on fire. We have to rescue the trapped civilians and put out the fire to save the day!

The piezos are used underneath the road the trigger the footsteps.
The fire inside the buildings are flashing LED's linked up with the Arduino board.
Inside some of the house are this little dolls (i.e civilians) who's cheeks are glowing bright red with fear (not to mention being burnt).
When the doors are opened, the circuit to the fire closest to that civilian is cut - putting out the fire

Midi vs. Ardrumo

Having found the relevant Midi file, we hooked up our piezos, and using the code for Ardrumo we tried it out.
Unfortunately Ardrumo doesn't seem to pick up on the file. We tried saving the track as a drum file to "trick" Ardrumo but no success!

Basically even though these Midi files should work, Ardrumo is only configured for drum files, and so we'd need a different program altogether.
So again...back to the drawing board!

Hot or cold?

We can't record new sounds with midis but we can download existing files.

Possibility;
Using piezos on the ground, staggered towards a corner of the room, where there are a seemingly inconspicuous pile of cardboard boxes.
As you walk towards the pile, you trigger different piezos - each with the two notes used in the Jaws theme song. Using garageband we can speed up the track for different piezos so that as you get closer to the boxes the tune plays faster and faster, building suspense. Finally, inside 5 of the boxes are 5 of the russian dolls, nesting quietly. As you open the box with the doll inside, you trigger a final piezo which makes the track go really fast with a high pitch -revealing the doll inside; cheeks glowing red because they've been caught.

Piezo Sensitive

Having looked further at the possibility of Ardrumo and having spoken to a electronic music whiz, it seems the problem with Ardrumo is that it works with MIDI files.
Because computer software has MIDI files in text form, you can't record vocals etc to make a new one.
BUT MIDI files, though low quality, can be compiled with different instrumental parts to play a song (sometimes used in polyphonic ringtones).
So now we're thinking audio is a possibility again!


http://todbot.com/blog/2006/10/29/spooky-arduino-projects-4-and-musical-arduino/