Music of the Light, Part I: Brainstorming

Final Project: Follow the Light!

My group of three is building a light-based music player.  On Wednesday we spent a few hours brainstorming and working through the design, and came up with an ultimate goal and lots of ideas for the general mechanism.

The initial, most general brainstorm:

We broke down our goals into two main parts: the general sensing and programming stuff (A) and the mechanisms behind it (B).  Then we organized our thoughts a bit more and wrote this legibly:

 

We initially got a little overexcited about our project, and we wanted to pare it down into something manageable, so we added in (C) to organize and remember all the things we hoped to do as secondary goals, once the basic mechanism was functional.

The Pugh chart for A1, musical notation:

Based on our Pugh chart analysis of the relative bonuses of each style of music notation, we decided that the music read would be a simplified version of normal music notation (for now, one staff in treble clef, with only quarter notes).  We're planning to try programming in the text version of PicoBlocks, as the blocks version gets messy with complicated programs and we don't really know how to connect MATLAB to an external chip.

We then attempted to brainstorm programming (which I find less fun than actually sitting down with a computer and seeing what works instantly, but it's probably a useful step) as part A2:

Then we worked on B: Feeding/Structure (how to move the reader and paper relative to each other, and the general structure of the machine): 

 
The general structure is vaguely reminiscent of a typewriter.  The music would be rolled up on a scroll (5) which would be unwound by the motor (2) by rolling it onto another scroll (1).  8 sensors (4) would read the music--there would be one for each note in an octave.  A command chip (6) would run the program we will write to process the photo cell inputs into music played from a speaker (7).  The general body (3) would be made of Delrin; the sensors (4) are Lego-mounted photo cells; the scrolls (1 and 5) are Lego axles with 4-8 small tires on each for even rolling; the motor (2) is a simple Lego motor which turns the Lego axle (5) via gears and/or a pulley system.  The command chip (6) is from a SciBorg, and the speaker (7) is also from the Pico programming set.
A different view of the machine:

Two close-ups on the top of the machine; the rectangles in the middle are the photo cells.  This shows the cover on top of the machine which will contain the mess of photo cell wires.  Left: front-on view.  Right: view from the side.

C: The Complicated Stuff (possibly adding at the end):

After all this thought, we were pretty excited about the project, so we stayed a little late making the block of photo cells, finding Legos for the scroll wheels, and putting the resistors into the SciBorg motherboard we're using to interpret the light sensors and run the program.  Next week we'll test the accuracy of the light sensors and find the right distance to hold the light sensors from the music.