Hi, I'm Brett.
Created with John Capogna and Maria Paula Saba
Laser cut from clear acrylic, our drawing machine listens to your voice and then creates a unique drawing based on 3 variables from the sound: pitch, volume, and the length of the recording.
A Processing sketch ran on a computer to record and process the audio. Commands are then sent to an Arduino to run. The three variables corresponded to 3 motor movements on our machine. The arm of the machine moves into position and then the platform and the arm rotate independently to create a unique drawing for each audio sample.
I only burned up one motor controller by overloading it and then had the opportunity to make one from scratch. I learned how to use both geared and stepper motors, create h-bridge motor controllers, use Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) to analyze audio, how to send more complex serial data between the Arduino and the computer and general construction and electronics skills. It was a great learning experience for me and my teammates.
Physical Computing Arduino Processing