Input devices are a major component of my final project and this week I focused mainly on devices similar to those I’d use in the theremin. I began by making several of Neil’s step response boards - two copies of the hello.txrx.45 step-response board and four of the hello.load.45. I installed coolterm to read the boards’ serial output but ended up successfully comminucating with the boards only on lab computers. I used copper strips that had been pre-cut and attached to wires, kept in a bin of input devices in the lab. I was able to observe the boards’ varying output as I moved my hand around the copper. I would like to perform this same simple test on the board I’ve begin designing for my final project, but with the sensors I’ll actually be using.
usage in final project
My final project is meant to take input from a capacitive sensor similar to those I used with the sample step-response boards. Traditional theremins use long metal rods as sensors, but I ended up using copper sheets cut into leaf shapes on the vinyl cutter. I did mill two steel antennae in the Harvard machine shop to use but found that they responded more weakly than the copper sheets. I hope that the copper leaves will have a similar range of input values as the copper sheets that I used with the step-response boards, but have not tested them yet.