Couple of weeks ago I presented my culmination project, framed laser harp, at New York City College of Technology. Work on it was so interesting for me, that I decided to share it here. I am an Arduino amateur and don’t have any professional experience in electrical engineering or programming. Neither am I a musician. Probably that’s why I had so much fun: when you are moving blindly, you can’t see the ground anyway:)
So, why laser harp? First of all, lasers are always cool. But laser beams making sounds were some kind of sorcery for me ever since I encountered a huge Arc Harp at Burning Man 2012. I was obsessed with the idea of making my own laser instrument, and finally got a chance to do it.
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, or even use Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for MakeCode, CircuitPython, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell with Google Hangouts On-Air is every Wednesday at 7:30pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
