Ping Organ

I was trying to think of a quick toy I could build for my kids.  I came up with this idea of an ultrasonic range finder, an Arduino, and a speaker.  Basically the Arduino plays a tone out of the speaker based on the distance from the range finder.  The result works pretty well and can be built in minutes.  You can play this from anything from your entire body, to just your feet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6F4xoe1rQMs

Step 1 Parts

1. Arduino
2. Range Sensor (I used a Parallax Ping))) that I picked up a Defcon a couple of years ago, anything like this would work as well http://www.sparkfun.com/products/639)
3. A small speaker (I pulled mine out of an toy moose that sang Blue Christmas)

Ultrasonic range finders basically work by sending out an ultrasonic signal and then they sense how long it takes to come back.  Think sonar for a submarine.

Comments

[electfire]

Good little "ible!
I've tried it and it works ok, though the code might need a bit of tweaking as sometime it latches on a single "note" This though might be due to the limitations though of the Ping sensor...

Also I am curious if one could modify the code or circuit so that it could send out CV/Gate messages to a drum machine/synth.. Also maybe adding more "ranges" or "notes"....

Also *note* if you want to view the distances the Ping sensor is reading the Serial Monitor has to be set at 9600baud, anything below 9600baud yields gibberish in the serial monitor, also anything set higher 2800baud also yields gibberish.

Other than that this is a really easy one to wire up and is quite fun...
(fun as in annoying to everyone else!)