On the third day, we had to work faster to finish our project by the end of the day. Saquib Bhaia gave us some advice based on what we had done so far. He suggested that we should make our project simpler and focus on using just 3 or 4 music notes instead of making it too complex. We were working on two different instruments – one that makes sound with hand movements and another that creates music when you touch it. In the morning, we saw our first 3D-printed flute, but I realized we had made a mistake. It was meant to let air pass through, not make music. We faced a bit of a crisis because one of our team members had an emergency and couldn’t join us, and our Arduino wasn’t working perfectly. However, our mentors were incredibly helpful, like guiding angels, assisting us in our journey.
So, we changed our plan again (yes, once again, change of plan), even though the last day was approaching quickly. For our second instrument, we decided to change the sensor circuit. When we tried to press the flute for a longer touch, the Arduino couldn’t understand the sensor. So, we found a different sensor to use. We also designed another 3D model and set it for printing.
Meanwhile, my teammate Munni tried fixing errors and bugs in her code. If she changed one requirement, then another requirement wouldn’t work in the code. Later on, we had the final session of this year’s KolpoKoushol workshop, and the topic was AI is a Pattern Recognition and Product Design, presented by Deeni Fatiha, Product Manager at DeepMind, a prominent subsidiary of Google known for its pioneering work in AI research. She discussed the most useful areas of AI – scientific discovery, creative augmentation, productivity etc.
When we were done with our final session, we got back to the project to complete. We finally designed our 3D printing design to make a flute and put it into the machine to print because it takes a few hours to print. Now, let’s talk about our instruments in detail.
Instrument 1 – GesTune – A Musical Magic (the fun part is we didn’t remember to give our project a name at first)
Imagine creating a musical instrument that dances to your body’s rhythm. This project fuses technology, music, and a dash of magic that captures the artistic and graceful poetry of our movements and transforms them into melodious symphonies. The key point of this project is to involve people with special needs to weave their own harmonies through the simple art of gesture and body movement. GesTune will bring a new dimension to musical expression and create a unique and immersive music-playing experience for everyone.
As I mentioned in my previous day’s blog, our initial plan was to use the mystical power of camera vision to detect the fluid motions of our arms and based on that, transmute them into musical notes. Later we replaced camera vision with sensors. So we used a Time of Flight (TOF) sensor to measure the distance from the device. With that using the esp32 board we implemented a BLE connection with our mobile app. With implementation, we created a system that calculates the distance between our body and the sensor and sends a MIDI note through BLE to our mobile app. Using the Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) app, it can play a specific note depending on the sent MIDI note from the esp32 board.
Instrument 2 – Baj.ai (Bajai) – Play Any Sound/যেকোনো কিছু বাজাই/Jekono Kichhu Baj.ai (the fun part is we didn’t remember to give our project a name at first)
Imagine yourself as a beginner in the world of music, like someone who just started to learn the Ukulele. As I thought about the vast world of music, I realized that trying to learn many instruments could be quite challenging. So, I wondered: What if there was a special instrument that anyone, no matter how experienced they were in music, could use to make the sounds of different instruments with a simple touch?
So at this year’s KolpoKoushol, we turned this idea into an ethereal musical instrument and became a special musical instrument we call Baj.ai (in English, “play any sound”), we came up with this name because this instrument can play any type of music (also a tribute to keeping the project names in Bengali (thanks, KolpoKoushol). It looks like a regular flute on the outside, but it has a magical ability. With just a gentle touch, it can create the sounds of a guitar, a piano, or a violin. What’s even more enchanting is that you can change the pitch from high to low, all within the same beautiful melody. It’s like weaving a symphony that’s filled with dreams and the enchantment of endless possibilities.
The rest of the time, we divided our teams and worked on our two different projects, and still members of each division helped the other out as much as they could. We added some new features to Bajai and took care of some cash-clearing problems in the algorithm, while Arduino, breadboard, and MIDI were slowly, and very onerously, working their way into the second project. Though it was the end of day 3, we didn’t have any clue where we going to adjust or set our GesTune. But well, we are getting ready to rock tomorrow!
Zarin T. 