Theremin Extra, room-range

Hello guys,

This is my first post so let me tell you something about me. Im Alexander, a product design student living in Amsterdam, studying in Utrecht.

i've started using the arduino a few months ago, and got myself into a little project. I've made a theremin module described here. http://interface.khm.de/index.php/lab/experiments/theremin-as-a-capacitive-sensing-device

Now its all fun and dandy, but i've got the idea to make the theremin antenna a bit larger, span it through a room of about 12 square meters.

Is it possible to enlarge the antenna? Should the antenna have an extra energy source to make work? I'm a newbie at writing arduino code, but i do understand it, if i read it.

Instead of the giant antenna its also possible to use LDR's but that does take away the easthetics of the magnetic field sensing.

So my main question is how of getting a theremin-like device, in a larger proportion.(area of about 12m²)

Cheers!

That circuit uses 4MHz, and with 4MHz you can try a larger antenna.
There are also (many) other ways to detect a person, for example a PIR sensor, or ultrasonic, or remote temperature sensing.

The classical theramin design is only for a short range, like this one:

I am building the theremin according to the same link, and I was wondering if you came up with any solutions regarding expanding the sensing range?

I have been reading up on capacitance and one article suggested using more than one capacitance surface attached to the Arduino. I am running tests to see how far the range can be extended by trying out different wires parameters (number, gauge, wire versus sheets) and then using Max/MSP 6 to compensate for the margin of error.

Thank you!