Ideas on incorporating interactivity?

Nojoy

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Aug 9, 2020
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@OzAz
  • a tablet (a cheap android one would be sufficient)
Graysonline usually has Lenovo 10inch tablets going for ~$50 refurbished
 

BAZMick

Full time elf
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Nov 26, 2019
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@OzAz
  • a tablet (a cheap android one would be sufficient)
Graysonline usually has Lenovo 10inch tablets going for ~$50 refurbished
Do not buy Lenovo, I had one that the wifi kept dropping connection and was getting worse and worse to the point where it would take 2-3x longer to watch a video as the video was. No help from Lenovo and they don't seem to care on customer support forums.
If you can work a solution not to use the wifi then go for it but for me I'll never buy anything Lenovo again
 

darylc

404 darylc not found
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Dec 8, 2012
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I'm going down a different development path. Just ordered the Bare Conductive Touch Board which is an arduino board with midi synth built on.
Going to play with a capacitive giant keyboard design to avoid any UI elements that would need hand or finger input, and to keep it as simple as possible for kids to interact.

That looks really very interesting.
 

darylc

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Dec 8, 2012
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1,146
That looks really very interesting.
Googling some more, it seems that is very susceptible to EMI interference, this seriously puts me off because I imagine I generate a lot of that in my show!
 

Nojoy

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Aug 9, 2020
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@darylc
Indeed. Will see what the impact is during testing.
current plan is to have touch board co-located with the keys with max 70cm of leads from the keys to the board.
Then either powered usb lead back to the pc (or potentially bluetooth/ethernet if i can get a shield working with the board)
 

Jayxdallis

Bayrise Lights
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Nov 15, 2019
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52
Location
Urangan - Hervey bay
I'm going down a different development path. Just ordered the Bare Conductive Touch Board which is an arduino board with midi synth built on.
Going to play with a capacitive giant keyboard design to avoid any UI elements that would need hand or finger input, and to keep it as simple as possible for kids to interact.

@Nojoy looks similar to Makey Makey! I have one and its cool, great fun making a drum kit with fruit or hooking up to kids dinner with fart sounds when they eat! but my thoughts on this is the need for you to be the conductive loop another words player will need to be barefoot and touching either side of the circuit! there is youtube clips on this with alfoil and cardboard. I'm going with contact switching with just simple on/off function I may in the future look into to pressure sensitive trigger that way I can configure to the suppression or extension of the note played and possibly alter the effect as to how hard that note is played but ill need some help from some very smart people to pull this off.

I really hope we can get back to mini's next year as I was so keen to do this year thanks to Covid, VCS 2020 was awesome but very condensed I missed out on heaps! I love to collaborate as my expertise is with automotive Can Bus and someone else may be an expert on code writing etc
 

OzAz

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Dec 29, 2015
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997
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Newcastle
Question for the gurus: For the physical structure, could you hack one of those piano dance mats? I'm guessing they just have basic contact/pressure switch in each key, that then goes to some sort of electronics. eg:
Kmart one
Amazon one
 

David_AVD

Grandpa Elf
Community project designer
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Jun 12, 2010
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Victoria Point (Brisbane)
I'm not sure that the kids musical mats would last very long, especially outside.

Years back, I briefly looked into using piezo elements on the underside of boards to trigger stuff.
 

Nojoy

Full time elf
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Aug 9, 2020
Messages
110
@OzAz tried that this week with a cheap kids piano. Not very durable and very prone to picking up multiple presses. FPP was registering 3-4 press and release each time a button was keyed.
Also tried using the pressure switches inside an old ps4 controller, but same issue.
 

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108CAM

Proud to have the largest display on my street!
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I was thinking of making things like Selfie Spots and inviting kids to post their letters to Santa in my Christmas Mailbox and provide a bin for people to recycle their old, broken & unwanted lights.
 
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