README.md

   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
  37 ## Useful links:
  38
  39 * [Pictures](http://bit.ly/codeclubminiband)
  40
  41
  42 ## Drum Kit
  43
  44 ### 1. Make your drums
  45
  46 Take your 4 piezo buzzers and attach a ring of Sugru (or other modelling material) as shown in the picture.
  47 This will increase the flexibility and resonance of the sensors. Let the sugru set.
  48
  49
  50 ### 2. Connect the circuit
  51
  52 Piezo buzzers generate a small charges when you tap them, so they don’t need a power source.
  53 Connect one lead from your buzzer to one of your analogue inputs, and connect the other lead to ground.
  54 Repeat for each of your drums. It is easiest to use a bread board for making your circuit.
  55 Look at the picture for an example.
  56
  57
  58 ### 3. Progam the Arduino
  59
  60 Find the appropriate code from the respository and upload to your Ardunio board.
  61
  62
  63 ### 4. Set up in Scratch
  64
  65 Find four different drum sounds (or whatever sounds you'd like your drums to make!). Upload the sounds to Scratch.
  66
  67
  68 ## Guitar
  69
  70 ### 1. Make your guitar
  71
  72 Grab your strip potentiomater, a piece of thin card, and a pencil.
  73 Lightly draw round your potentiometer on the card and then use this as a guide to draw out your guitar shape.
  74 (The potentiomater will be the fret board of your guitar).
  75 Cut out and colour in the guitar and stick down the potentiomater.
  76 Tape a pencil or stick to the back of the guitar to make it stiffen the fret board.
  77
  78 ### 2. Connect the circuit
  79
  80 The potentiomater strip adjusts resistance, so you will need to feed it some electricity.
  81 Run +5V into one of the strip’s outer pins, and ground into the other outer pin.
  82 It doesn’t matter which way around you connect these, but it will affect which the direction
  83 the fretboard runs (high and the top, low at the bottom or vice-versa).
  84
  85 Signal will come from the centre pin, so connect that to one of your analogue inputs and you should be good to go.
  86
  87 ### 3. Set up in Scratch
  88
  89
  90
  91 ## Maracas
  92
  93 ### 1. Make your maracas
  94
  95 Cut 2 short lengths of drinking straw for your maraca handles.
  96 Using Sugru (or other modelling material), make 2 maraca heads by rolling it up into balls.
  97 Push the maraca heads onto the straws and mold into a maraca shape.
  98 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.
  99 Leave the Sugru to set.
 100
 101
 102 ### 2. Connect the circuit
 103
 104 Connect the +5V port on the Arduino board to one of the pins on the tilt switch (it doesn't matter which way round).
 105 Connect the other pin to an empty digital input on the board.
 106
 107
 108 ### 3.
 109
 110
 111 ## Pull-down Resistors
 112
 113 You’ll find your analogue inputs receive signal when you don’t expect them to.
 114 This is because there’s electricty floating around in the system, or something like that.
 115
 116 To fix this, you need to wire each input to ground, through a 10KΩ resistor.
 117
 118 A better explanation can be found [here](http://arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/DigitalPins).