Motor Keyboard

Today I will be teaching you how to build a Motor Keyboard. Going off the principal that a motor that is hooked up to a speaker makes a noise, I decided to take lots of different motors of different sizes and hook all of them to a car speaker. After about an hour I had the finished product and it turned out to work great.

To make this project you will need:

1. An assortment of different sized electric motors

2. A wood plank

3. A large speaker

4. Aluminum foil

5. Insulated wire

6. Soldering iron and wire

7. Galvanized steel wire (just needs to be a flexible, sturdy wire)

8. Electrical tape

9. 9 volt AC adapter

10. Switch

11. Hot glue or other strong adhesive

12. Hammer and nail

Step 1: Connecting the Motors

Take your wood plank and lay it down horizontally, now measure 3 inches in from the left side. This is where your first and smallest motor will go. Mark where your motor is and then remove it. About 1/8 inches to the left of your mark hammer in a nail that is a bit smaller than you steel wire, then remove it. Now insert a length of steel wire that is 1/2 an inch smaller than the width of your wood plank. Insert this piece of wire into the nail hole and secure it into place with hot glue. Take the smallest motor and connect one of it's wires to the steel wire with solder. After this bend over the steel wire so it is hovering above the bottom of the plank. Repeat this step with all of your motors, in order of smallest to biggest, left to right.

Step 2: Connecting the Wires, Speaker, and Switch

With the insulated wire that is not connected to the steel wire on each motor you will make a snake wire. to do this, take each wire and twist it with the next one and so on until all of the wires are connected to each other. With the electrical tape, tape all of the wires together. Now, connect the snake wire to the negative wire of the speaker. Next, connect one of the wires from the 9 volt AC adapter to the positive side of the car speaker. Connect the other wire from the AC adapter to one end of the switch

Step 3: Attaching the Aluminum Foil

First, get a 1.5 inch strip of aluminum that is about 2 inches longer than the section of the plank with the motors on it. The strip should be under each end of the steel wires. Now take a piece of wire that is long enough to reach the switch and strip both sides of it. Tape the exposed part of the wire to the right side of the aluminum strip. Now to reinforce the aluminum, cover the edges with electrical tape. Next, attach the other exposed end of the wire to the other end of the switch. Label the switch with On and Off on the appropriate sides. Your motor keyboard is finished! To operate it just press the steel wires against the aluminum foil, and if you did it right you should hear a tone come out of the speaker.