Solenoid Orchestra Help

Using Arduino Project Guidance
1

Hey forum, I am building a solenoid orchestra. The system as I see it, is roughly like this:

I phone OSC ----- MAX/MSP ----- Arduino ----- 5 Relays/Arduino solenoid schematic ---- Five Solenoids
( Data Flow OSC )( Electronics )

I might use Ableton to sequence Midi to Max so I can control the solenoids.

I have a few questions:

  1. Will I need to bridge Max/Msp and the Arduino control with an Arduino/processing app or do you know if I can go right from Max to Arduino?

  2. Will I be able to use OSC through the whole system or should I convert to Midi at some point.

  3. Also I will be using a Iphone app that outputs OSC based on conways game of life. It looks like conway's game of life generates, multiple, seemingly random osc data. If I am using 5 Solenoids how do I use this data to trigger the Solenoids in a meaningful way. Maybe each solenoid can be triggered by a range of triggers? Any thoughts?

3)Any other advice? Has anyone seen a project summary of the same type online somewhere?

Thanks for your help in advance.