The IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society hosts a competition every year where students are given a restricted set of materials and a theme to design around. The theme this year was music and my team won third place (https://arduino-contest.sscs.ieee.org/winners).

Using simply an Arduino Uno, an ultrasonic sensor, and a piezo buzzer, two teammates and I built our own little instrument. To play a note, you control a pushbutton with your left hand and hold a flat board in your right hand within varying distance intervals depending on the note you’d like to play. It also has a button for changing octave, a button for sharps, and a button for flats, so you can play any melody you’d like. If you’re interested, watch me clumsily play a part of “7 Nation Army” by The White Stripes in the video below. 

I’m proud of how organized the breadboarding is here and how elegant and simple the code was. My piano playing abilities do leave something to be desired (video below).