Motor-phone

Our motors on their resonance chambers

Inspiration

We were inspired by the unintentional rhythms that stepper motors can make as they do their work, and then later received further inspiration from seeing people online try similar things.

What it does

Utilizing a Midi file that's converted into Gcode, our project can generate rhythms via 1 to 3 stepper motors, and then utilizes a resonance chamber in the form of cardboard boxes to amplify the sound.

How we built it

Our building process involved hours of trying to find software that was compatible with Arduino, Gcode, and our particular computer. Physically speaking we utilized stepper motors, cardboard, duct tape, cables, a 29 year old power supply, and our persistance.

Challenges we ran into

We lost several hours to setting up programs and drivers that then proceeded to not work or lack some crucial element of compatibility. When all seemed lost, we found what was originally thought to be our original idea had in fact had some elements streamlined including the conversion of MIDI into Gcode. This is of course not our work, and therefore is not in our repository, nor are we in any way taking credit for said code. That aside, the hardware setup on its own and the fact that we managed to get a working project that does nearly everything we wanted was still very satisfying.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Finally getting the Gcode onto the motors and listening to our unconventional instruments in action was an amazing experience.

What we learned

The Dunning Kruger affect is a very real danger when making projects. When making a project, make sure to understand what's going to need to go into it, not just hardware wise like we did, but software wise aswell.