Project
# | Title | Team Members | TA | Documents | Sponsor |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
45 | Assistive Digital Piano |
Anna Shewell Jae Young Kwak Shruti Chanumolu |
Zipeng Wang | appendix0.zip design_document0.pdf design_document0.pdf final_paper0.pdf other0.pdf presentation0.pdf proposal0.pdf |
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PROBLEM: Learning to play piano over a longer duration can be tedious, boring (for some) and above all very expensive . The average cost of piano lessons is between $15 and $40 for a 30-minute lesson in the United States. However not taking lesson has potential drawbacks as well. For instance wrong fingering, playing too fast or to too slow, no performance evaluation metrics or evaluators to rate your improvement in piano playing, improper key tapping and pressure exerted on keys( affecting and changing the melody of the music) and not practicing enough. In addition it has been commonly found among young children losing motivation to play piano due to either differences with their piano teachers or just not fun to practice piano regularly. PROPOSAL: With our project, the assistive digital piano, we aim to reduce the requirement for professional guidance in piano learning, at least at the beginner level, and aim to develop methods to make piano practicing more fun for younger kids. INNOVATIONS: Many learning tools exist as toys for kids to play around with. What will set our project apart is that the keyboard will light up with the correct key to press in the sequence of the song in a specific color, and the player will wear gloves with color coordinated fingers that correspond to the key that is supposed to be played. Otherwise, the sound from the key will not play. Another feature that will make our keyboard unique is that we will use the note, dynamic, and rhythm data of the played song to save the player's performance and create computer visualizations to see whether the player is playing too soft, too loud, or off rhythm (when played alongside a built-in metronome). SENSORS: --Color Sensor Info(https://www.adafruit.com/product/1334, https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20061017005039/en/Avago-Technologies-Introduces-Industrys-Smallest-Digital-Color, ) In addition to the color sensor, we will have shock impact sensors measuring key dynamics. Digital pianos often use velocity measurements to find the speed at which the key is pressed to determine the volume. We will attempt to use both methods. HARDWARE: To put this piano together, we will have to be cognizant of 1. How each individual key will act as a pressure sensitive switch that produces a signal for the speaker, 2. How each key will use a color sensor to detect which finger is pressing the key, 3. How the circuit will determine, from a file input, which key should be played next by which finger and prevent any other sounds from being played by keys and the song from moving on until those keys have been pressed, and 4. How the data will be recorded. software part: from the data collected from the hardware part we will design a software to measure the rhythmic accuracy(will use a metronome to determine the speed and beat accuracy) ,errors in key and finger placements and evaluate the learners performance. Since building a full 88 key digital piano is an extreme endeavor, we will focus on a proof of concept build that consists of just a few fully constructed keys. |