Automated Kalimba Player

Feb 2023

Description: This Project was part of a make-a-thon in which participants had 24 hrs to come up with a design for a given category and make the physical project. The category my group and I chose was music. We made the Auto-Kalimba which is an automatic kalimba player in which inputting kalimba tabs outputted actual music played on the kalimba.

Role: Having the project divided into three subsystems dealing with the software, electrical and struct-fab. I was in-charge of the struct-fab aspect which dealt with designing and CADing the 3 axis gear servo system, the structural supports which hold up the gear system as well as fabricating the entire project using wood cutting and 3d printing. The gear system contained two servos moving the chassis in the y axis direction, one servo moving the hammer in the x axis and one small servo moving the hammer in the y-z plane to hit the kalimba tines. Allowing 3 degrees of freedom; two translational and one rotational DoF.