A digital piano keyboard
Introduction:
For my final project in HCDE 451, I decided to build a physical piano keyboard prototype. A few months ago, I created an electronic piano keyboard with Arduino (see the image below). I want to use the prototype techniques I learned in the past 8 weeks to improve this digital piano.
Tag Line:
Designing a digital piano keyboard
Team Members:
This will be a solo project.
Design Goal:
Although the current piano keyboard prototype can generate sounds of 8 different note when touching the buttons. It looks confusing to users who are not familiar with Arduino and circuits. The goal of this project is to create a high fidelity encloser for the circuit so that it can be used as a real piano.
Project Concept:
A bit of the technical background: To build the circuit, I used: Arduino UNO, 8 Push Buttons, a Buzzer, Several Jumper Wires, Breadboard or PCB boards(soldered together)
The way that Arduino generates tones using Arduino is to use the tone() function, from the “pitches.h” Library. The “pitches.h” Library contains all the pitch values for typical piano note, which allows the buzzer to produce different tones like a piano.
Although this “piano” has different notes and can generate sounds, it doesn’t look like a real piano. The aim of this project is to build a physical encloser for this piano circuit using paper prototyping, laser cutting and 3D modelling/printing.
Implementation Plan:
To implement this project, I’m planning to apply 3 prototyping techniques that I have been practicing over the past few weeks: paper prototyping, laser cutting and 3D modelling/printing. I would like to start by doing research and sketching out the basic idea. Then, I’m planning to create a low-fidelity paper prototype using some low-cost materials such as paper cardboard to test out the feasibility of my design. After that, I’m going to put my design into a 3D modelling software, and use the laser cutter and 3D printer to build the final prototype.
Testing & Evaluation:
I’m planning to do a usability test after creating the paper prototype to see if the idea is feasible. If I have time, I’m going to conduct another usability test for the final prototype and see if further improvement is needed.
Risk Factors:
The process of designing the piano keyboard is going to be a challenge. Combining the encloser and the circuit together and make it actually work is going to be the biggest challenge since I have to also work on redesigning the circuit.
