I've been always interested in percussion instruments. When I was younger, I played the drums and the Peruvian cajon and I have always had an interest for the sound of every-day objects. Like bottles, cans, pieces of wood or metal parts.

I'm thinking of making out of my final project a self-playing or automated percussion module, where the percuted object can be changed and the object with which it hits (the stick) can also change. So two variables within the module. What is hitted and what hits.

If I have enough time, I would ideally make a set of modules so I can have a percussion set playing together and synchronized. Shawn, here at the Lab has told me already that this is possible through the use of midi-language and that Arduino supports it! This means that I could have an input (it could be live, programmed, triggered by some button) to the midi interface which then serves as an input for an Arduino that then tells the object to kick rhythmically! Or something like that.

More or less what I have in mind.

For this system to work I have to think on how to solve the "percussion" itself. That is, the force of -what- will make something esle (a stick) move to hit the surface being played. Some people solve it with a single motor to active every hit, some others solve it with gravity (check the marble video). I was thinking of using air, although I think this could be very complicated. I still did this diagram:

Air and valves that are controlled according to a midi instruction sheet. Every closing of the valve delivers an amount of air pressure to an activator...

Check out some videos I compiled that are inspiring to me in this subject, although not all of them are a direct reference, one way or another they inspire me to produce this project:

Jay harrison uses a mechanism that I think could be useful, although his goal is to build an instrument more similar to a xylophone with notes and the possibility of being harmonic, I'm thinking in percussion and the sound of anything!

The cool thing about Peter Vogel is that he uses analog electronics to achieve his goal. Although I'm going for digital electronics, it is insteresting to see what he has done. His machines are very inspiring.

This crazy machine uses gravity and marbles to play the instruments! It then picks them up and makes the marbles go back to the top.