Timberine

We invited Oliver Milverton to be the guinea pig for the first Owl Project Studio Play Day as we like the way he thinks and he has been doing a great job keeping ~Flow going.

This is what he got up to ...

As a project for a second year university design project I decided to design a new instrument for the Owl Project based on Flow. I was particularly interested in the piezo disks used to pick up vibrations in the frame.

Thoughout the design process I experimented with different ways in which the piezos can be used to generate sound. I also looked into the possibility of using them to generate electricity, creating a self-contained product. As part of this project I spent a day at the Owl Projects studio experimenting with different ideas, this made for an exciting day, at the end of which we had developed a working prototype.

After developing this prototype further I came up with my final idea. The main feature of this is an accelerometer attached to an Arduino, which is programed to give out different tones depending on the angle the instrument is at. This is then modulated using the piezo disk. The Timberine also includes a white noise circuit and an audio input, both of these can also be modulated using the piezo disks. I have used two piezos that work independently from each other. One piezo can toggle between modulating the white noise, and the tone circuit, and the other can toggle between the tone circuit, and the audio input. Both can also toggle between modulating one of these or being a straight contact mic. Here are some images and a video of a prototype.