Circuits – The blog of the MATD3039 Advanced Musical Electronics module

4th April – Presentations

Lecture

In the lecture today we discussed ways in which you can document the process if our projects so that we know the aspects of development that have occurred throughout our projects. We discussed there categories:

Visual (videos, pictures and diagrams)
Written (Blog posts, publications and lab notes)
Code repo (GitHub blog posts)
Quantitative and qualitative data (Excel spreadsheets)

Lab

Today we all completed a 10 minute presentation of how far we have come with our projects so far and explained any aspects that we still needed to complete. We all then graded each other on four different aspects of our presentations which included:

Clarity
Complexity
Aesthetics
functionality

Those of us that have managed to get sound to work with our projects have shown how they can be used. Below I have included the slides for my presentation so that you can see the progress that I have made with my Arduino project. In the presentation slides there is also a video of my project so far and the issues that I have been faced with.

Although I am having an issue with the fact that the code is struggling to work with my project, after meeting with my peers today I see where the issue is and how I can change my code so that it works successfully.

It is also interesting to see how far we have all come with our projects individually as we have all been given the same brief but chosen to approach it differently.

Presentation-for-Arduino Download

21/03/22 Lab and Seminar Blog

In this morning’s session, Tolu gave a great presentation on some projects that inspire his project and gave a great insight into his thought process into how he decided his final project.

For the lab session, we began with a recap of last week which we then followed by an informative session around remote access of the DMU computers which in turn gives us access to software such as SolidWorks which is a material design/3d printing and construction software that will be crucial for us to

A Screenshot of a half sphere created within SolidWorks

The second phase of the lab was spent checking fitting within the enclosure and trying to work out creative ways in which I can get the most out of my circuit and make it a unique, interesting project.

Week 24 – 14th March (presentations)

Lecture

Today we presented our presentations about Arduino projects that have helped give us ideas towards our own. This was a timed presentation that was 15 – 20 minutes and everyone in the class gave feedback on how the presentation was completed as well as the criteria that they had completed their project up to. It was interesting to gain feedback from those in the class as we completed these presentations on our own and needed ways in which we could improve them. It was also captivating to see how other people had done their presentations and the ideas that they had for their own projects as we all have very different ideas about the projects that we wish to complete.

This is one of the instruments that I looked at during my presentation and it is the instrument that has had the most influence on my final piece in total.

https://create.arduino.cc/projecthub/Barqunics/paper-piano-with-arduino-e27da7?ref=tag&ref_id=piano&offset=1

Lab

We took a tour of the mechanical workshop to see what machines they had available and the kinds of projects that they were producing. It was interesting to see a completely different department compared to the one that we are usually situated.

This is an image of a laser cutter that is similar to the one that is in the mechanical workshop – the secret to clean laser cutting: Designing a better laser nozzle using 3D-printing – Nervous System blog (n-e-r-v-o-u-s.com)

What is the mechanical workshop?

The mechanical workshop is a room that has multiple different pieces of equipment inside it that can be used to make various different projects that include making physical things.

2. Who are the contact persons?

3. When can you go?

The timetable is on the back of the door of the workshop room.

4. Where is it located?

In Queens at the back of the building near the very end.

5. Why you should go?

You should go to develop any project that you have decided to create to add originality and a creative fare to it.

6. How are you planning to use the mechanical workshop concerning your project?

I may decided to use the mechanical workshop in my project as I’d like to create a mini piano that look realistic. This would mean that I could laser cut pieces of the piano such as the keys. However, I don’t know have access to one of these machines so visiting the mechanical workshop would be necessary.

Conclusion

In conclusion it was interesting to see the various pieces of equipment that they had available to use as I wasn’t aware that the department existed. They had various models of planes and cars which was interesting to see as there are many different options that you can make. It has allowed to to see that I can create a much more interesting instrument that I first thought and I think that it will look more professional in total.

AME MATD3039 14/02/22 Lab (Online)

For this session, we revised Creative Commons Licensing which is crucial to the software we will be utilising. A Creative Commons license is used by authors that intend for the general public to have access to their work, to edit it and potentially expand upon it. This can include a non-commercial license so it is for non-profit, individuals, or educational purposes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cc.logo.circle.svg

The Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (cc BY-SA 3.0) license version allows users to share, copy and republish work in any format. It allows users the freedom to adapt the work provided, including any commercial uses that may be relevant. It is required that the original work is referenced properly and that it is not disguised as your own, independent work.

We then installed the Fritzing software and went about following the tutorial to create our very first circuit which features an Arduino Uno board, a LED and a resistor (220Ohm). We used the inspector fucntion to alter the resistance of the resistor and colour of the LED.

https://fritzing.org/learning/tutorials/building-circuit

We then followed a more advanced tutorial featuring a 9V battery, a capacitor, a general IC (74C14), a photoresitor and a breadboard to create to following circuit.

Handmade Electronic Music by Nicolas Collins, Chapter 32 – “My First Oscillator”

The above circuit would assumably control the output of the device using the photoresistor, which is essentially the same design as my coursework from a previous module that functioned like a light theremin.

Fritzing is quite an intuative software that allows you to create circuits very quickly and has a very similar interface to TinkerCAD which I have worked with previously. You can implement the code that you would upload to the Arduino which helps with error checking and even goes much further with the schematic section which allows greater routing variety. Fritzing is very similar to TinkerCAD, with the exception that it cannot perform simulations. However, Fritzing provides a much greater variety of components that are not included in TinkerCAD.

Week 17 – Lab Session Blog

We began the session by revising what we learned last week and looking over our previous Arduino code, line by line.

Next, we recreated a circuit from the worksheet which features a 10K Ohm resistor, a pushbutton, an LED, a breadboard and some jumper wires with our Arduino boards. When the button is pressed the LED lights up

We then altered the code to create a version where the button controls the LED in a different capacity. It is interesting that we can leave the circuit the same but we can change the function of the hardware by changing only the code.

We then updated the code further to remove a small bug so that the light stays on when turned on and turns off when pressed again. There is a noise generated by the push of the button which we can counteract within the code to make it much more reliable in its function.

We then created a new more basic circuit and code that allows our LED to fade on and off intermittently.

A short video of the LED fading on and off with the circuit in the background.

This session has been an important coding revision and it is very important to understand what your code is doing, line by line. Otherwise you cannot diagnose errors and you won’t have any deeper understanding of what your code is achieving.