Hey Its Soumojit Back again with a cool project. Its a ultimate paper piano with just arduino. Can be a good weekend project or can be a great thing in a science exhibition too. So the whole things work on concept of capacitive touch, you can read more about it here https://playground.arduino.cc/Main/CapacitiveSensor/. I also dont have too much knowledge about piano but I did a little research in internet and learn some stuff about piano and notes.

So, in this piano their is 2 octaves and another c note, total 15 keys. Keys are made by pencil in the paper and connected to arduino via paper clips and wire. Their is also a speaker connected to the arduino for the output.

So lets make it.....

Step 1: Things You Need

So we need some basic components and tool to make this piano.

1) Arduino Nano (As the brain, u can use other arduino versions like UNO, Mega, etc.)

2) 15x 1Mega Ohm Resistors.

3) Bread Board

4) Wires

5) 8-ohm speaker

6) Paper Clips

7) Normal Paper or the printed template

8) Pencil

You can draw the piano by your self or I made a 15 key template which u can print and fill the keys with a pencil.

Step 2: Building the Circuit

So check the circuit diagrams and place the arduino in the breadboard. then connect the resistors one side in a common rail and the other side in the specific arduino pins (pin D3 - D12, A0 - A3) according to the schematics. Then connect the common rail with pin D2. Now cut some wire and add a wire in each arduino pins ( pin D3 - D12, A0-A3) where the resistor is connected.

After that take your speaker and connect one end to pin D13 and another end to ground.

The circuit build is mostly done, now we just have to code and have to make the keys in the papaer.

Step 3: Lets Do Some Coding

So the code is very simple and has options so you play around with it.

You need to download the capacitive sensor library and then you are good to go

You can just download the code and upload to your Arduino and start playing and touch the wire ends to play it.

Also, you can set the note of every key, just look at the pitches.h file and then change the notes according to your needs.

After successfully uploading the code we can move on to making the keys in the paper.

Note- After connecting the wires to the keyboard you may need to recalibrate the trigeer value. First, you have to upload the code and open the serial monitor, you will see a bunch of numbers in rows, Then u can touch any wire and see how much the numbers go up so you can set a trigger value, so if the value goes above the trigger value it will produce the sound.

PianoV3.rar
Download

Step 4: Making Keys in the Paper

So now we have the working circuit, now you can draw 15 keys in a small piece of paper or just print my template (Attached in step 1). Now take a bold, dark pencil to fill those keys. Try to properly fill the keys so can be a conductive surface. After that add paper clips at another end of the wires and connect them to paper keys.

Now you are good to go.

Step 5: Final Product and Conclusion

If you did everything correctly you will have a working paper piano made with Arduino. You can play with the code to change the octaves or notes. If you have a microcontroller with more GPIO (Like - Arduino Mega) you can add more keys.

It can be a good weekend project with very fewer components. I hope you liked it.

If you have any problems or suggestion just ask in comments.

Also please vote this project for the Arduino contest.

Thank you, see you next time with an awesome project.....

Please vote me for the arduino contest.