The Digital Pianola
| Team: | Mikkel Proschowsky & Tobias Toft |
| Grade: | None |
| When: | Spring 2008 |
| Company: | None |
This small project was about recreating the classical western-pianola, in a new and digital form. We still wanted to keep the traditional paper-roll, but the rest of the instrument was updated to support the MIDI standard, making it able to control a wide range of instruments, software as well as physical.
The core of the project is a PIC16F877A microprocessor, a linear optical array, an array of bright LEDs and finally a bit of pinhole optics. The video is showing one of the first tests of the instrument. The hardware was built in Lego Tecnic and was equipped with a stepper motor, to drive an already recorded piece of music if needed. In the video, the instrument is tuned after a blues scale and the strip of paper is controlled by hand.