Update README.md
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1 # Code Club - Mini Band Project
2
3 Make your own mini band!
4 You and your friends can form your own finger-sized band and rock out using Raspberry Pi and Arduino.
5 Learn how to build circuits with sensors and outputs and write a simple programme to control your instruments.
6
7 ## You will make:
8
9 * A guitar
10 * A set of drums
11 * A pair of maracas
12
13 ## You will need:
14
15 * 1 x Raspberry Pi (plus monitor and power supply)
16 * USB hub
17 * 2 x Arduino Uno boards (with USB cables)
18 * 1 x strip potentiometer
19 * 2 x tilt sensors
20 * 4 x piezo buzzers (the type in greetings cards, easy to get from Maplin)
21 * 10K resistors
22 * Bread boards (1 per instrument)
23 * Card
24 * Sugru (or some other modelling material)
25 * Electrical tape
26 * Plastic drinking straw
27 * Pencil
28
29
30 ## Software requirements:
31
32 * Scratch
33 * IDE developer environment for Arduino
34 * Py Serial library
35
36 ## Drum Kit
37
38 ### 1. Make your drums
39
40 Take your 4 piezo buzzers and attach a ring of Sugru (or other modelling material) as shown in the picture.
41 This will increase the flexibility and resonance of the sensors. Let the sugru set.
42
43
44 ### 2. Connect the circuit
45
46 Piezo buzzers generate a small charges when you tap them, so they don’t need a power source.
47 Connect one lead from your buzzer to one of your analogue inputs, and connect the other lead to ground.
48 Repeat for each of your drums. It is easiest to use a bread board for making your circuit.
49 Look at the picture for an example.
50
51
52 ### 3. Progam the Arduino
53
54 Find the appropriate code from the respository and upload to your Ardunio board.
55
56
57 ### 4. Set up in Scratch
58
59 Find four different drum sounds (or whatever sounds you'd like your drums to make!). Upload the sounds to Scratch.
60
61
62 ## Guitar
63
64 ### 1. Make your guitar
65
66 Grab your strip potentiomater, a piece of thin card, and a pencil.
67 Lightly draw round your potentiometer on the card and then use this as a guide to draw out your guitar shape.
68 (The potentiomater will be the fret board of your guitar).
69 Cut out and colour in the guitar and stick down the potentiomater.
70 Tape a pencil or stick to the back of the guitar to make it stiffen the fret board.
71
72 ### 2. Connect the circuit
73
74 The potentiomater strip adjusts resistance, so you will need to feed it some electricity.
75 Run +5V into one of the strip’s outer pins, and ground into the other outer pin.
76 It doesn’t matter which way around you connect these, but it will affect which the direction
77 the fretboard runs (high and the top, low at the bottom or vice-versa).
78
79 Signal will come from the centre pin, so connect that to one of your analogue inputs and you should be good to go.
80
81 ### 3. Set up in Scratch
82
83
84
85 ## Maracas
86
87 ### 1. Make your maracas
88
89 Cut 2 short lengths of drinking straw for your maraca handles.
90 Using Sugru (or other modelling material), make 2 maraca heads by rolling it up into balls.
91 Push the maraca heads onto the straws and mold into a maraca shape.
92 Connect lengths of wire to the connectors of the 2 tilt sensors and then push each sensor into a straw until it presses into the Sugru.
93 Leave the Sugru to set.
94
95
96 ### 2. Connect the circuit
97
98 Connect the +5V port on the Arduino board to one of the pins on the tilt switch (it doesn't matter which way round).
99 Connect the other pin to an empty digital input on the board.
100
101
102 ### 3.
103
104
105 ## Pull-down Resistors
106
107 You’ll find your analogue inputs receive signal when you don’t expect them to.
108 This is because there’s electricty floating around in the system, or something like that.
109
110 To fix this, you need to wire each input to ground, through a 10KΩ resistor.
111
112 A better explanation can be found [here](http://arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/DigitalPins).