Arduino Xylophone

I made a xylophone that uses an Arduino Mega to detect when a note is struck, and generate MIDI output. This project is wondeful because I essentially made a xylophone, a drumkit, and any other MIDI controlled sound instrument, with one tool. The following steps  will outline what I used to make this xylophone.

Step 1: You will need...

To construct the xylophone I used the following parts from Radioshack:

(x1) Arduino Mega 2560 (Radioshack #276-127)
(x12) Piezo Element (Radioshack #273-073)
(x12) 1M Ohm resistors (Radioshack #271-1356)
(x1) Single Core wire (Radioshack #278-1221)
(x1) Printed Circuit Board (Radioshack #276-170)
(x1) USB 2.0 Cord (Radioshack #26-714)
(misc) Electrical Tape (Radioshack #64-2373)
(misc) Heat shrink (Radioshack #55048444)

The housing for the xylophone was easy to build. I used:

1/4" plywood
1/8" acrylic sheeting
wood glue
1/4" vinyl tubing
1 1/2" long machine screws.
2" masking tape

Tools:

laser cutter
scissors
cotton swabs
small flat head screw driver

Comments

[dBange]

Nice!!! I'll try to do this :D

[brassclams]

Is it possible to use an Arduino Uno? Sorry, I haven't read through your tutorial yet; maybe you explain there why the Mega is necessary.

Robert

[bricabracwizard]

This uses 16 output pins, UNO has 14 so you could make a xylophone with 14 notes instead of 16.

[agomes6]

I just cited this here: http://www.instructables.com/id/Simon-Game-Xylophone-Version/

Hope someone merges them :)

[mmorlan62]

I love a project with a tool list that starts with "laser cutter." I'll just pick that up at the local Home Depot. :-)

Thanks for sharing the project.

[LoveDrums]

That's tremendous!

[dworki]

if(VelocityFlag == true) ... :-D ... I still remember a teacher LOLing at me looking at similar code I wrote ... what about if (velocityFlag) ... or if (velocityEnabled) ... makes the code cleaner.

But otherwise i like this instructable. Nice idea.

[zvizvi]

Very neat! great i'ble, clear and super fun
In case you don't want to source a Mega just for those extra analog ins, I'd consider using a 4051 multiplexer (http://www.arduino.cc/playground/learning/4051)

[neoroman]

Wow great...! I want to make it for my daughter.

[naturalist71261]

Groovy idea, nice clean job too! I'll bet that your father is proud of you!

[fjordcarver]

Huzzah! Beautiful. Thanks for this!

[janw]

Awesome project!

As a trained musical instrument builder, I can only look at it and love it instantly. It would be even nicer if it had the typical shape of a Xylophone where the higher notes have smaller bars than the lower ones.

Maybe you should call it an Acrylophone as xylophone comes from the Greek ´xylos´ what means wood.

[elhobe]

it's a fantastic project! play notes via midi with a manual input is cool and fun!

Thank's for sharing :)

[agomes6]

I like this so much that I will give it a try in a smaller scale 3D printed version with dig inputs for standard arduino usage....will keep you posted!!!

Congrats though, keep them coming :)

[mamalove]

BEYOND SUPER!

[Penolopy Bulnick]

That is awesome! I didn't know you were done. It looks great :D