Individual Retrospectives on Sprint 1

David
​- team got a lot done
- delegation seemed to work well but it was challenging to find help while being responsible for a single component

Nathan
- enjoyed working on the solenoids
- it was difficult to keep track of what other members were doing
​- it was great that we spent more time working on the components than researching

Nev
- working with the melody was fun
​- group seems very excited and passionate

Victor
​- it is great the camshaft prototype was working
- maybe arduino is not the way to go with the melody
- I am interested in learning more about the different sensors we can use to make the instrument more versatile
- delegation was very effective since we were not limited by each other’s progress. Everyone was able to work at their own pace

Flynn
- we did a lot of work to transform an amorphous project into something that is mostly defined
- division of labor seemed great
- we should look into being more active in the trello for transparency of each other's actions

​Mechanical rhythm

​For the second sprint we believed that it was important for the mechanical component of the rhythm to be controllable. So the design allows the user to control which pivoting arms to use.

​The entire system is driven by a large motor. However, this seemed to cause some issues as the speed was not calibrated properly. We also seemed to have an issue synching the sounds with the solenoids drums. For the final design we wanted to have a thicker and more accurate wooden camshafts. This would allow us to create more distinct sounds. Another issue we faced was that drumsticks sometimes got stuck with each other. Thus, we aimed to create controlled spacers for the lever arms to prevent these occurrences from happening.

​Programmable Rhythm

The important progress we had for the programmable rhythm for sprint 2 was creating a looping function. This was the user could press a button, play their preferred beat, and press the button again to create the loop. Even though it was working we had a few issues. It was buggy as sometimes it would not work at all. For next sprint we wanted to use capacitive sensors instead of buttons to ensure a better user experience.

​There are two major solenoid drums that the user can control: the Bass and the Snare. We also wanted to make the drums more polished to have cleaner sounds for our final design.

Electronic Melody

We had a problem experimenting with the Arduino's Tone function since the sounds were too mechanic. So we tried to use a Mozzi library to create a synthesizer to smooth out the sounds. While that did help a little it was still difficult to control the pitches. Thus, we decided to use an Adafruit Music Shield. This allowed us to play more melodic pitches. Additionally we were able to utilize the instrument library to change the instrument that is being played. This way the user had an opportunity to better customize the sounds they were trying to make.

The most important part of our progress this sprint was the fact that we were able to play melodic tunes. We also were able to properly shift between octaves with more accurate ranges. We changed our sensors to the precise distance sensors. For the next sprint we aimed to set up more of these sensors to be able to play between more pitches.

What We Learned

While still being interested in what we are doing many people said that they were confused about what this project is going to be.

Based off the google forms reflections, people seemed to like the sounds coming from our demo videos.

​For the next sprint we aimed to have a full functioning prototype that people in the class can experiment with. We also thought that it would be important to discuss the aesthetics of the project. Since we had mostly been working on small teams we never discussed the final layout designs. A lot of people also felt like they weren't completely sure about how the other components functioned. So one of our major goals for the next sprint was to have a huge team bonding/design/aesthetics/catch-up meeting.