Final project

Progress tracking

• See week 1 for some initial ideation about the project.
• As I learned about microcontrollers in week 2, it seemed to me that they might be an easier route towards making a theremin - ie., a digital rather than an analogue version may be easier to implement, due to less strict requirements on geometric modelling concerning capacitance and inductance of the circuitry invovled.
• It seems like having the two antennae act, in some sense, as input devices, like the bare metallic buttons on the QPAD, may be the way to go. Of course, I expect their behavior to be different due to the size and geometry differences, but conceptually, it should be something similar. I am waiting for the input devices week to get a clearer picture.
• The sound should be created by some sort of speaker connected to the microcontroller. A naive idea would be to create single pitched sounds with the pitch given by the corresponding antenna. However, to emulate a more realistic musical instrument, I expect to have to do a lot of sound engineering in adjusting the presence of overtones, timbre, etc. I have no musical training, and only know about these notions from my training in physics. I am waiting for the output devices week to develop a clearer concept about how to emit the sounds and how to map the input to the output.
• See week 5 for a preliminary design of a circuit board based on an RP2040 microcontroller for the theremin.