One of the largest, although quite possibly the weirdest inventions of the modern music industry, theremin is known to produce unpredicted variation of sound without actually physically touching the instrument. One can easily learn the correlation between a location in space and the resulting sound, but can hardly move as fast as the robotic arm to achieve precisely the desired audio outcome. Ideally, this actuation attempt should verify that it is possible to construct a simplified version of theremin (an optical one to be exact) and control its power (from a 9V battery) with the circuits with the schematic of design.
The idea behind is to be able to run the ARDUINO UNO with desired time lapse between different locations that are identified through extensive tests. The end product would be to modulate the output and run the robotic arm to obtain desirable audio outputs. The mechanism behind this is the use of analog output control of ARDUINO to modulate the pulse width so as to allow the duty cycles to regulate the power supply of the independent optical theremin setup. The theremin, on the other hand, is powered by a 9V output from ARDUINO’s Vin which is unmodulated therefore can supply the optical theremin.
The design intent for this assignment stretches out from the first assignment and expands to the rest of the semester, focusing mainly on the actuation of an actual instrument that is actuated with the collaboration between ARDUINO, optical theremin and the robotic arm, finding and eventually utilizing the optimum sound through spatial reference.
The following steps will have to include the setup of a rack for the maximum exposure for each components in the setup (this includes setting up a model in Rhino and identify the solid angle that each optical resistor are facing, the effective radius that the robotic arm would be capable of covering over the rack, etc.), the identification of at least a pattern of graduation and eventually the potential of being played as an instrument without continuous humming from transitions.
