Passion Project 2024: Mini Arduino Piano

Introduction

I was always interested in being able to build things and program. So when I heard about Arduinos and what they could do, it was a no-brainer that I would use it in my final project where I can both build and use code at the same time. Even though I’m not a music person, I still thought it would be interesting to take up a project involving it, so I chose to build a mini piano for my passion project. The piano would work by playing a different music key that would play from the buzzer, and each button is assigned a key by the code.

A digital prototype of the piano I will create physically, made on Tinkercad.

Process

During the process, I wanted to create a paper cover that could both hide the wires and make it look like a real piano. However, before this I came across many challenges, such as not being able to fully insert wires in the breadboard, buttons not working, various code errors, and the buzzer activating when the circuit was completed for absolutely no reason. I overcame these problems by just trying again and again until I got the result I wanted.

The Arduino piano, both without and with the paper cover.

Conclusion

In the end, I got the result I wanted, and I am satisfied with what I was able to create. I was comfortable presenting my project during the STEAM fair day, and I loved the feedback I got from those who tested the piano themselves. Something I learned during the process was C++ and how to control Arduinos. Some things I will do next time if I had to do this project again would probably be to add more keys to be able to play more songs, and also start working on the project much earlier rather than procrastinating.