Slinky Metronome Proof-of-Concept

Slinky Metronome Proof-of-Concept

The initial proof-of-concept for the Slinky Metronome, a Sociable Object for my thesis, is complete and it works. It uses a Slinky spring toy as a pendulum. An accelerometer at the base of the Slinky tracks the (primarily) sinusoidal movement as the bottom of the spring rises and falls. An Arduino microcontroller processes the Z axis from the accelerometer to figure out when the pendulum phase shifts from negative to positive, signaling a beat. The current code then takes this information and sends out those beats with measure codes over a XBee 802.15.4 radio.

The idea is that different musical and art projects in the same space can use this metronome wirelessly to coordinate their sounds, motions and lights with each other. The result should create a diverse orchestrated work where the whole is greater than the parts.

The current proof-of-concept leaves the electronics off-board, with only the accelerometer on the bottom of the Slinky. The next prototype version will use a printed circuit board, bigger Slinky and place all of the electronics radio and battery in a lightweight case that rides along at the base of the spring. Here’s a schematic for the new system:

Metronome Schematic

And a movie showing the metronome sending to a simple Processing program that wirelessly claps along in time:

Click to play movie