This fun and easy project shows you how to create a simple input device with little more than a cheap piezo sensor, an old mousepad, and an Arduino board. Using household supplies and a few passive electrical components, you can create a basic physical-computing game input device for your Arduino.
Projects from Make: Magazine
Arduino Drum Pad & Game
Create a cool computer input device with a piezo sensor, Arduino, and the Processing language.
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Steps
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Step #1: Introducing the drum pad input device and game
- The drum pad is used to input "beats" into the Arduino system. The Arduino is able to read the beats from from the drum pad through the piezo sensor.
- The object of the Processing game is to get as many "beats" as possible in a 5-second time frame. Currently 33 beats is my high score!
Conclusion
Using this simple-to-construct piece of hardware, you can create a cool input device that will allow you to control all sorts of fun software you can create, from a drum-practice application to drum-beat-controlled video games. If you do code any apps for this project, please tell us about them in this project's Notes.
For more beginner's information about Arduino and Processing, check out Getting Started with Arduino and Getting Started with Processing.
Also, take a look at our bi-weekly Codebox column (about using Processing) on Make: Online.
And, to access our front door to all things Arduino on MAKE, see our Make: Arduino page.