Project

# Title Team Members TA Documents Sponsor
15 Guitar Buddy
 Austin Born
Christopher Horn
 Channing Philbrick appendix0.pdf
final_paper0.pdf
photo0.jpg
photo0.jpg
presentation0.pdf
proposal0.pdf
Austin Born - ajborn2
Christopher Horn - chorn4

This project is an innovation designed to accelerate the initial steps of learning to play the guitar. The goal is to build an array of LEDs that can be placed over a guitar's fretboard to display the necessary notes to play a song, along with a system to detect the strings and frets currently being played. We currently intend to control the LEDs with a microcontroller, acquire or build software to read the digital sheet music, and use analog signal processing of voltages across the strings to deconstruct the played strings on a given fret.
Existing solutions include the Fret Zealot (Link: http://www.fretzealot.com/) and FretFX (Link: https://www.fretfx.com/), which are LED arrays that fits over a guitar's fretboard to illuminate notes for the player. While these products are similar in purpose to our project, they do not include any form of sensing for strings and frets.
Project #5 for the Spring 2018 semester of ECE 445, titled "Facilitated Instrument Learning", also attempted to improve initial instrument learning with LEDs, but was focused on discerning musical notes on a keyboard from audio music. We intend to illuminate notes from digital sheet music, with the additional capability of sensing a player's played notes. Additionally, our project requires careful consideration of how to conform our system to the guitar's fretboard, which may be more challenging than an apparatus placed above a keyboard.

Link to Web Board Post:
https://courses.engr.illinois.edu/ece445/pace/view-topic.asp?id=27325

The Marching Band Assistant

Wynter Chen, Alyssa Louise Licudine, Prashant Shankar

The Marching Band Assistant

Featured Project

NetID/Names

wynterc2 (Wynter Chen), alyssal3 (Alyssa Licudine), shankar7 (Prashant Shankar)

Problem

Drum majors lead and conduct marching bands. One of their main jobs is to maintain tempo for the musicians by moving their hands in specific patterns. However, many drum majors, especially high school students, need to learn how to conduct specific tempos off the top of their head and maintain a consistent tempo without assistance for performances. Even those with musical experience have difficulty knowing for certain what tempo they're conducting without a metronome.

Solution Overview

Our project consists of an arm attachment that aids drum major conducting. The attachment contains an accelerometer that helps determine the tempo in beats per minute via hand movement. A display shows the beats per minute, which allows the drum major to adjust their speed as necessary in real time. The microcontroller data is wirelessly transmitted, and a program can be downloaded that not only visualizes the data in real-time, but provides an option to save recorded data for later. There is also a convenient charging port for the device.

This project is a unique invention that aims to help marching bands. There have been previous projects and inventions that have also digitized the conducting experience, such as the Digital Conducting Baton from Spring 2015. However, these have been in the form of a baton rather than a glove, and are used to alter music files as opposed to providing feedback. Additionally, orchestra conductors use very delicate motions with a baton, while drum majors create large, sharper motions with their arms; thus, we believed that an arm attachment was better suited for marching band usage. Unlike other applications that only integrate digital instruments, this project seeks to assist live performers.

Link to RFA: https://courses.grainger.illinois.edu/ece445/pace/view-topic.asp?id=37939

Project Videos