I soldered the theremin together and began testing it for functionality. My friend lent me some copper tubing to use as antennae, but warned their conductivity may be too high and this would alter the sound. Although the copper did work to produce sound, it was ill-suited for the calibration process.
Nov 23rd
Got some old television antenna from BestBuy. They're adjustable length, but after some tweaking I discovered that the theremin doesn't work so well when collapsed. However, when fully extended they're perfect for calibration and playing. The left volume antenna does detect motion, but for some reason doesn't affect the volume. I think this is more a problem with the code than anything.
I am not a theremin player by any means, but here's a video of the working theremin, calibrated and being played:
Dec 4th
After doing some pretty extensive research on the theremin in order to write the code to adapt it to my mini project, I made a very important discovery: it's impossible.
Not so much a defeatist statement as a fact, unfortunately. The proximity sensor works by telling my exactly how far away an object is (by sending out a a sound and then listening for the bounce back), then sending this information back in the form of a digital signal to the arduino. The arduino outputs a DC voltage based on this information then to the vibrator and the LCD, based on the ranges I outlined in my code.
While the theremin antenna also react to the proximity of my hands, they output this information in the form of an AC current (a sin wave) that changes in frequency and amplitude depending on the position of my hands in relation to the antenna. This information goes to the audio jack on the theremin, which is what the output is. I'm not sure what, exactly, is going to the arduino aside from the ground, voltage, LED, and calibration button (which is all I have been able to glean from the code....which means the theremin hogs like all the pins and only uses 4? I'm sure the later version must use others because I know updates were made to allow the pitch and volume potentiometers to work) but even if I did, I'm not sure I could intercept that info since the circuits are already soldered to the board.
To get the theremin to just control the motor, I'd need to wire an analog circuit that intercepts the AC voltage that was going to go to the headphones and reroutes it to the motor. The LCD only does digital information, so I'm not even sure what I'd have to do for that. but in any case, the arduino is not even in the picture anymore.
So my project doesn't work anymore............so that's cool....................
but at least I learned something.
Dec 5th
So I guess I'll try to fix up my mini project 2 and use that? But I'm still getting the weird interference and, while I love it, I think controlling it is important.
My friend (the one who lent me the aforementioned copper tubing) suggested a voltage regulator made of a zener diode, a p2n2 transistor, and a 1k resistor. The math behind it basically reduced the current coming from the battery from 9 when going to and from the motor, which is where the interference was coming from. When we tested it without the voltage regulator, however, the inteference seemed to disappear. So.
I decided to focus instead on making a different container for it. If it's not broke, don't fix it--there are 4 other finals I need to worry about so if I don't need the voltage regulator anymore then I don't.
Dec 13th
In the universe's infinite and absolutely shit sense of humor, I need the voltage regulator and I didn't write down how it went (i can practically hear Katerie yelling "this is why documentation is important!" yes i kNOW BUT I'M A FOOL). I know one leg of both the diode and the resistor go to the p2n2 and then the other leg (center leg) goes to positive, but I don't remember it exactly and I don't wanna fry my whole circuit wweh.
On the other hand, I did make a box.
haha watch me suffer.
i'll get this working right before friday but this is what I have for crit lmao
UPDATE:
got it to work without interference!
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