Duration: 24 hours
What I did: Interaction Design, Front-end Development
Team: Landon Paik, Michael Richardson, Jimmin Zheng, Eric Yi
Awards: 2015 HackNC Top 7 Hack
Airchestrate is an app that utilizes the Myo armband to instruct both novice conductors as well as professionals about how to effectively lead a group of musicians. The app uses Myo armband’s haptic feedback as a metronome to keep conducting completely in sync with the music. In addition, the conductor can manipulate the volume of the music using the amplitude of arm movements.
Ideation
After having a basic understanding of Myo and knowing its limitation and capabilities, we began to brainstorm different possibilities that could be realized with Myo. During the ideation, we found out that all members in my team love music and play at least one instrument (we have two guitarists, a pianist, and a conductor). Thus, we decided to put our passion in music and this new technology into good use. Thus, we came up with the idea of “Airchestrate”, which means to “Orchestrate on Air.” The goal of this app is to coach both novice and professional conductors on how to lead a group of musicians.
Design / Coding
We spent a significant amount of time to brainstorm the features of the app. We also looked into some existing educational apps/ materials that help people learn to conduct. From that, we started designing the user interfaces and choosing the visual elements of the application.
After the design phase, we started to code the application with Javascript and C. Programming was a particularly difficult part of this project because there were not many supporting documents online related to Myo.
Final Solution
Game Interface
The interface consists of 2 parts: the conducting pattern and the music score. The conducting pattern is the suggested movement for the learner. The music score at the bottom helps users train their music reading skill.
Normal Mode
A standard 4/4 beat song with the ‘time dot’ (white circle) that moves with the speed of the user’s hand.
Menu Page
By swiping ‘swipe’ up and down with the Myo armband, users are able to select songs they want to orchestrate.
Advanced Mode
In this mode, the orchestrate pattern is more complex, with a variety of orchestrate gestures to play with. There will also be cues for users to vary the speed and volume during the song.
Custom Mode
In this mode, users are able to define their own orchestrate pattern. They are able to enhance/diminish [speed, volume, pitch] through different gestures using the Myo armband. The pattern will also be recorded and replayed afterwards.
Gesture Design
An extra interesting (and challenging) element of this project is the gesture design. Myo armband is capable of detecting very minute changes in arm muscles, thus giving us the opportunity to simulate different orchestrating gestures (such as stretching palms for increasing volume or holding a fist for stopping).
2015 HackNC
Best Hardware Hack
