DigitalTrumpet

Inspiration

We were inspired by musical apps like the ocarina app by Smule, but wanted to develop an instrument with physical controls.

What it does

The digital trumpet plays when the user blows into the microphone of the attached iPhone. Pressing down the valve buttons changes the pitch. The user can modify the pitch and tone my moving their finger on the touchscreen while they play.

How We built it

The app was designed in Xcode and written in Swift. The structure itself was a mix of found objects such as a thin sheet of acrylic, and some lego pieces. Three push buttons were combined with a speaker to output the result of the app, which interfaced through a server provided by IFTTT.

Challenges We ran into

We had trouble getting our laser-printed parts completed, so we had to improvise most of the physical design. We also found the desire to use Bluetooth instead of Wi-fi communication, but were unable to find an available device that could provide this service. We decided to use the Wi-fi enabled microcontroller as a learning experience even though there was a noticeable delay in the demo.

Accomplishments that We're proud of

We're proud that we made something that's enjoyable to use and functional, despite setbacks and the short time frame of this hackathon. We were also very proud of being able to use sets of skills from most areas, instead of being limited to software.

What we learned

We learned how to program in Swift to create an iOS app, how to use Creo while designing 3D parts, and how to communicate with a microcontroller via Wi-fi.