Arduino Theremin

When I got my Arduino protoshield from sparkfun, I wanted to make something cool with it. And since I had seen a few Theremin projects before, and already thought about making some, I finally made one, using the Parallax PING sonar sensor. Here are some informations about how I made it. You can see all the pictures here.

 

 

First, the schematics:

 

 

 

Here's the commented code for the Arduino:

int pingPin = 7;

int buzzPin = 10;

int btnPin = 1;

int val;

void setup()

{

  pinMode(buzzPin, OUTPUT);  //set speaker pin to output

  pinMode(btnPin, INPUT);    //set pushbutton pin to input

}

int getPing()

{

  //send a 10us pulse to wake up the sonar

  pinMode(pingPin, OUTPUT);

  digitalWrite(pingPin, HIGH);

  delayMicroseconds(10);

  digitalWrite(pingPin, LOW);

  //get the raw value from the sonar, corresponding to the

  //actual time of travel of the ultrasound waves

  pinMode(pingPin, INPUT);

  return pulseIn(pingPin, HIGH);  //return this value

}

void loop()

{

  if (digitalRead(btnPin) == HIGH)  //only play when the button is pressed

  {

    val = getPing() / 5;  //you can tune the pitch by dividing by a different number

    //generate the pulse

    digitalWrite(buzzPin, HIGH);

    delayMicroseconds(val);

    digitalWrite(buzzPin, LOW);

    delayMicroseconds(val);

  }

}

 

And that's about it! Now you should start to learn how to play it... Kinda hard at the beginning, but that's where the fun begins!

Here are some videos of me playing (jingle bells and tetris). It's also kinda noisy... maybe a better sonar would be better (if you have a different sonar, and manage to make a better 'thereduino', I want to see it!!!). Enjoy (or at least try to :p).

 

 

If I improve my skills, I'll post new videos... But I also want to see YOU playing YOUR Arduino Theremin! Feel free to send me an email or write a comment.