3 Compelling Digital Final Projects
The GrainCube– Paul Odenwaldt
This project was the most fascinating to me. Basically every other project was focused on triggering recorded sounds, physical instruments, or other sensory (e.g. visual) effects.
Unlike those, the GrainCube is an interactive physical device that synthesizes new sound as a granular synthesizer, not triggering an external synthesis device.
It had enough functionality that you have ease of control over what sound is being used for synthesis, its duration, pitch, delay effects, and more.
Drum Sequencer– Shane Patterson
This was one of the best interfaces for a sequencer I saw out of the projects. It made intuitive sense, like a DAW, to have the buttons light up sequentially from left to right, with time being represented as sliding across the buttons and playing the selected ones.
I am fascinated by physical DAW’s and sequencers because I think the constraint of their physical functionality directs and inspires what art comes from it.
I might want to make something very similar, but to have many time signatures. I haven’t seen that done yet. Or even to have different instruments be able to play polyrhythms, like to have the hats do sixteenth note triplets.
The Singing Glock– Ethan Bailey
There were a couple reasons I liked this project.
One being that ease of use/intuitive design was paramount. I didn’t find this to be a common trait of the other projects.
Another being that the video demo appeared effortless, comical, and creative, but was actually very concise and communicated its benefit well.
Arduino Based Projects
Pocket Synth– https://create.arduino.cc/projecthub/etiennedesportes/pocket-synthesizer-785b50?ref=tag&ref_id=music&offset=100
This inspired me in how complete and compact it is. It looks like a real product someone would buy, doesn’t need external power, and has functionality all as if it wasn’t an amateur project.
Send All Messages– Link has been terminated, personal project
As a final technology course at my high school, we had the open ended prompt of determining an issue that we could create a technical solution for, as long as it was testable. We had the year to complete the assignment.
We chose the issue of communication during a school lockdown, which had to be silent yet trustable and robust. We used Arduinos, transceivers, and 16×2 LCD’s that could receive pre-made messages from a sending Arduino-transceiver system. I was tangentially involved in coding and circuit building, but my personal tasks involved using Inventor auto-CAD to design and CNC a box that could house the components, held the LCD, buttons, and antenna, and had ventilation. I also found the legal precedent for such a device.
(Question 3)
In digital electronics a button is a digital input, a potentiometer is an analog input, and an LED is an analog output.
(Question 4: Have I done any coding outside of NYU?)
In addition to working with Arduino’s as mentioned above, I took 3 computer science courses at my high school, learning rudimentary python, and taking AP comp. sci based in Java, where I scored 4/5 on the AP exam. This covered class and object use, sorting algorithms, and using libraries (mainly graphic ones).
I have also used auto CAD variants to produce G-code as mentioned above.
Aidan Singh's Electronics updates 