Final Project: S3nse Gloves

 

a) What problem or question or aesthetic goal are you trying to accomplish with your project?  Make this 1 – 2 sentences if possible.  The more succinct and specific you are the better. What is the ultimate design goal of your project?

To create a portable, intuitive vocoder that singers can use to enhance their performances in a way that both looks and feels good, and does not detract or distract an audience from the performance.

 

b) What is the most difficult technical part of your idea?

  • Making sure that the FSR’s are responsive so that a user has consistent and reliable performance. This includes latched responses (i.e. the finger triggers something that remains until the finger triggers again), button responses (i.e. the finger triggers on contact, and the effect remains for as long as the finger is held down), and continuous responses (i.e. how hard the finger is pushed down influences the effect).
  • There will be two main difficulties, one with the sound design and one with the actual implementation of the gloves. It will be a challenge to figure out a way to map the FSR sensor readings into a vocoder and get the quality of sound that we want. Another challenge will be figuring out how to integrate the FSRs seamlessly into the gloves so that it is comfortable and aesthetically pleasing.

c) What sorts of challenges do you think you will face in creating this project?

-Some challenges that will be faced in creating this project include the general sound design of the vocoder, making the vocoder intuitive and aesthetically pleasing, having the glove be very responsive to touch, integrating the FSR’s into the glove well (either using fabric FSRs or foam FSRs), and working with mapping the sensors to suitable functions in MAX.

Relevant Links

PIANO GLOVE VOCODER:

https://youtu.be/S4XrBvJAHgk (Mi.mu gloves)

https://www.amazon.com/Electronic-Piano-Gloves-Musical-Fingertips/dp/B007GC5NDY (Piano gloves)

https://vimeo.com/7992026 (piano gloves)

https://youtu.be/mK7Tq8ouy5g (Past project – vocal effects gloves)

https://youtu.be/DxR5XDfwC84 (Past project – Humpad)

https://people.ece.cornell.edu/land/courses/ece4760/FinalProjects/f2015/swc63_ncm42_jmt329/swc63_ncm42_jmt329/webpage/ (Flex sensor piano glove)

http://www.instructables.com/id/MakeyMakey-Piano-Glove/?ALLSTEPS (do-it-yourself piano glove)

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/VP03?adpos=1o1&creative=55669760641&device=c&matchtype=&network=g&product_id=VP03&gclid=Cj0KEQjwqfvABRC6gJ3T_4mwspoBEiQAyoQPkYtEqHym9DfswRKHfnMd0GuTKws28pXHV-ycfUfWVrIaAiTa8P8HAQ (Vocoder)’

http://www.hogganhealth.net/pdfs/ErgoPAK-FSR.pdf (FSR’s catered to gloves)

http://www.openmusiclabs.com/learning/sensors/fsr/ (Thorough discussion of FSR materials for music/projects)

 

SKETCHES:

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Progress as of November 28th

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The glove shown above is the initial prototype using five FSR’s connecting to the Arduino. The data being read by the Arduino was then tested, and had a linear relationship between 0 and 1023. From here, the Arduino then did Serial.write, and sent the data from the glove into MAX.

 

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After building the initial glove prototype, some basic experiments with conductive fabric and Velostat were conducted, to see if a “softer” version of the FSR’s was possible

 

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Continued experimentation with conductive fabric and Velostat on the initial glove prototype.

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The above diagrams show how the sensor data is analyzed in MAX, and used to create a vocoder effect. A basic vocoder sound was created by taking one synthesizer signal and mixing it with the vocal input from the user. From here, further optimization and experimentation with user inputs will be done to make the gloves more intuitive and interesting to listen to.

Progress as of November 30th

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After some experimenting and planning, we think that the conductive ribbon will be the easiest way to interface the FSRs to the glove, because the leads of the FSRs can just simply be poked into the conductive thread in the ribbon, and glued down from there. An example of this is below. Also is the type of glue we used to secure the plastic FSRs to the fabric – it’s called ‘Amazing Goop’, and it works pretty well! Follow the directions on the back and you’re good to go.

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The below four pictures detail design/schematics that Darren and I sketched out. The sketches are our best efforts on threading all the necessary connections from the sensors and LEDs to the Flora, which is our wearable microprocessor. This was a difficult problem because each sensor/LED pair requires one line to power, ground, and to an analog measurement. The Flora is pictured at the bottom as well.

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Below is the flora, which is a microprocessor board configured for wearable projects.

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Progress as of December 1st

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Above is a glove with conductive ribbon sewed into the fingers. We found that the conductive ribbon was the best interface between the FSRs, with their metal leads, and the conductive thread that we will run to the flora. The wooden pegs make it much easier to sew in and out of the fingers of the glove!

 

 

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Above is another close up on the sewed in ribbons. We plan on attaching the FSRs to the finger tips, and sewing the conductive thread into the bottom of the ribbon.

Unfortunately the sewed in ribbons and conductive thread implementation did not work well, due to shorts between threads and difficulty securing the ends. The shorting occurred because there were so many threads running throughout the glove ending at the Flora processor, which resulted in intersections between wires that should not have been connected. From this, a new design using a breadboard and Arduino was used, which simplified the creation process while also leaving the final result slightly more aesthetically appealing.

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Creation process of the new set of gloves, as well as the failed sewing gloves next to them.

 

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Working gloves! Alexander testing and tuning the gloves with the microphone.

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Finishing up and fine tuning the gloves by cleaning up the wiring into the breadboard.

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Above is the sheet music for the gloves in performance. The score has three staves, one for the voice and one for each hand. The legend contains which notes should be assigned to which hand to be able to play the whole piece, which has been arranged to only need 8 notes.