We are almost done with a very rough end-to-end system from pad hit detection all the way to gameplay. Recently, we received our hardware parts and got most of our communications and developments rolled out for testing and further synchronization. Receiving our hardware parts almost 1.5 weeks late does push our schedule back slightly but with some of the work we did over the break we would say that we are almost on track. We just have to handle the interfacing between the central hub and the computer with a standardized communication protocol using MIDI format to convey our notes.
Some changes that occurred, is that we had to switch our transmitter modules from the Ebyte E01ML01S to the Aidepeen nRF24L01+PA+LNA modules because of some shipment hiccups but we were able to circumvent any large disruptions because these chips are all from Nordic and thus their libraries are mostly similar. Besides that we were still wondering if we should outsource our audio generation to our computer interface or through the Daisy Seed which has onboard DAC as well as SDRAM for storing our wav files for our DSP.
Part A: The main global impact of this project is how it reduces the barrier to learning drums for beginners. Typically, you would need to buy an expensive drum kit, an expensive teacher, and know how to read sheet music, etc. With PadL1, all that is needed are the few pads and access to a personal computer, which makes learning drums much more accessible on a global scale.
Part A was written by Abishek
Part B: This project attempts to accommodate cultural factors by having the learning platform not use any specific language and instead using universally understandable symbols and colors. For example, we identify the pad that needs to be hit matching each pad with a given color and the timing is shown by a note falling towards a designated hit zone. Also, in the case a missed note, we use an audio “error note” to designate this mistake. All of these features are culture agnostic and thus allows people for all cultures to enjoy our product.
Part B was written by Rishabh
Part C: This project does require a bit of resources from the environment for the hardware development of the pads such as rubber sheets, acrylic sheets, foam dampeners, and plywood backings. But in the future, with access to industry standard materials, I feel like we can make our system a lot more compact and thus avoid all the excess materials from prototyping. However, our system does not require further natural resources and is pretty compact without releasing any emissions thus presenting not much of a threat on the environment itself.
Part C was written by Caleb