3D printed drum (snare, hi-hat and bass drum) with Arduino powered sounds.
The concept behind my re-designed project is that as a classroom music teacher, I want each and everyone of my students to have the opportunity to learnt play a basic rock beat on a realistic feeling and sounding drum kit. It is often the case in a classroom context, that 30+ students are waiting in line to play the one and only drum set in the classroom. Both traditional (acoustic) drum sets and electronic drum kits can be expensive and difficult to find the room for, so this project aims to provide a solution to these challenges in the classroom!
Guitars and bass guitars are readily available to students in schools, while all students have the ability to use their voice to sing. Additionally, electric keyboards are also commonly available to students in the music classroom, however sharing a drum kit presents a real challenge in a class of 25-30 students.
Gaining inspiration... (so many incredible possibilities!)
3D printed drum pad with Arduino UNO...
17/10/19
Today I attended a ThinkSpace workshop at the University of Sydney organised by my friend and colleague, Jess. Our leader gave us a run down of various examples of items that we could print as well as showing us the 'print time' for various item, using a program called 'Cura'. For example, our workshop leader printed the three of us a size 5.5 ring , which took a total of just 8 minutes! I discussed my tech project plans with our guide and he suggested that I look at 'Oz MeetUp' to locate and attend a presentation on Arduino to support the next phase of the project, which I definitely plan on doing! (https://www.meetup.com/en-AU/OzBerryPi/)
What do I need to do in order to 'print my project?'
1) https://www.thingiverse.com - Used for finding 3D printing templates in stl (stereolithography) format. I've already found a snare template on this website and our workshop leader placed these templates into 'Cura' to find the total printing time to be 5.5 hours. He said this is achievable, however I would need to book multiple printing sessions to make sure I get everything printed in time. A challenge with this is that as a University of Sydney student, I am only entitled to one booking at a time and can only make a booking two weeks in advance so as I go ahead with the project I might consider paying for the 3D printing myself.
2) https://www.tinkercad.com/ - Used for modifying and/or creating images for 3D printing.
3) https://www.lulzbot.com/cura - Used to print the final template (this also enables 'print time' to be known).
Next steps...
Once the snare, hi-hat and bass drum have been printed, the next step will be for me to power the drums using Arduino (open-source electronics platform and software used to program it). I will download the Arduino software from https://www.arduino.cc onto my computer and using a USB cable, connect the Arduino to my computer, making sure the software connects to the correct Arduino (the video below details the subsequent steps).
You can learn Arduino in 15 minutes...
As more and more schools are investing and utilising 3D printers, it is feasible to not only create these drums for students in the classroom, but to make the drums with students as a class project, so that students are closely involved in the design and execution of the drums (i.e. cross-curricula opportunities!)
Some images from the ThinkSpace 3D Printing Workshop...
UPDATE:
Plan so far... Going to use this resource (https://www.instructables.com/id/MIDI-Arduino-Drums/) to build my snare, hi-hat and bass drum. The plan is to build two, 3-piece drum sets.
Reference List:
Anatol Locker (2017). Build a DIY E-Drum with a 3D Printer. [online] All3DP. Available at: https://all3dp.com/build-a-diy-drum-with-a-3d-printer-and-an-arduino/ [Accessed 13 Oct. 2019].
Team, A. (2019). Watch this guitarist perform an acoustic set with his own robotic drummer. [online] Arduino Blog. Available at: https://blog.arduino.cc/2019/10/11/watch-this-guitarist-perform-an-acoustic-set-with-his-own-robotic-drummer/ [Accessed 13 Oct. 2019].
You can learn Arduino in 15 minutes. [YouTube Video]. (2017). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nL34zDTPkcs