The consumer’s heartbeat controls this drum machine

Each vacation season, a number of of YouTube’s most outstanding makers get collectively for a Secret Santa reward change. It’s at all times enjoyable to see what sort of tailor-made presents they create and this 12 months is not any totally different. Sam Battle of the LOOK MUM NO COMPUTER YouTube channel drew Ali Spagnola in the latest change. Ali likes each music and train, so Battle constructed her this quirky drum machine managed by the consumer’s heartbeat.

At first look, this seems to be like a reasonably typical drum sequencer. It cycles by means of eight beats and might play from 5 totally different samples. Every beat has a set of 5 switches to pick the pattern to play on that beat. However the twist is that the machine solely strikes to the following beat when the consumer’s heartbeats, versus transferring by means of the sequence at a constant charge.

That sounds a bit of bit jarring, as a result of hearts will not be metronomes. However the profit is that the tempo will increase with the consumer’s coronary heart charge, so the tempo matches their exercise degree.

An Arduino Nano board detects the consumer’s pulse by means of a Pimoroni Pulse Sensor. It performs drum samples (or any audio clips) loaded onto a SparkFun WAV Set off module. Battle wired the sequencer switches in a keyboard-style matrix, which reduces the variety of IO pins required to only the variety of rows plus columns as an alternative of 1 pin for each change. On every beat, the Arduino checks the switches after which performs the corresponding drum samples. Lastly, Battle crammed all of that {hardware} into an enclosure with 3D-printed ornament that makes the gadget seem like an outsized coronary heart.

This isn’t one thing you’d ever see on a retailer shelf, which is what makes it the proper reward for one maker to ship one other.