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[on:]

Hi all,

I am new here, it is an amazing this place.

I have just bought an Arduino Uno to use to make interactive, sensor driven sound installations. So far I have managed to do this >>>>

https://vimeo.com/51945311 with an ultrasonic sensor into ableton live, if anyone would like the code let me know and I'll share it.

I want to do a simular thing but with a weather station, the signal from the station will effect different MIDI instruments, sounds and parameters. Does anyone have any experience with this? Is it possible? What sort of Arduino do you think would work best?

All the best
Tim Shaw

[Reply #1 on:]

In the linked project you're changing the values interactively. Weather parameters usually don't change that fast (perhaps with the exception of the wind speed sometimes), so the sound probably is quite boring most of the time.

Anyway, if you wanna do it, you probably can use any Arduino (an UNO would do) but the rest of the hardware depends heavily on the weather station you wanna use. Get more specific about the model you plan to use, or at least what kind of sensors you wanna deploy (if you wanna build everything yourself). You'll find lot's of Arduino based weather stations with a simple Google search.

[Reply #2 on:]

Hi Pylon, yes you have a point but I think it would make an interesting installation, over a long period of time.
This is the kind of thing I am looking at.

https://www.sparkfun.com/products/8942

Let me know if you have any other suggestions.

Thanks
Tim

[Reply #3 on:]

With this kind of hardware you're fine with the UNO alone. The rain gauge and the anemometer are simple interrupt devices (pins 2 and 3) and the wind vane goes to an analog input (p.e. A0). So you have more than enough pins for other stuff if you like.

[Reply #4 on:]

Weather parameters usually don't change that fast (perhaps with the exception of the wind speed sometimes), so the sound probably is quite boring most of the time.

You can play a certain piece of music when e.g. temp is 20C
If T rises/drops you can transpose the song  ==>  the music goes lower when colder and higher when hotter. 1 octave = 12 notes so the range from
8C -- 32C is a transpose of 2 octaves.

wind direction is also a nice one to play with (I'll take Switserland as an example):
If wind is North you get German music, is the wind West you get French music, South gives you Italian music, East will give you Austrian music
And no wind Suisse music.

just thinking out loud

[Reply #5 on:]

GREAT, going to purchase and get building.

Thanks for all the help.

Tim

[Reply #6 on:]

So I've done some thinking >>>>

I would like the date from weather station to control and influence some small motors that will play acoustic instruments such as gongs / cymbals / other things I can find that make great noises.

Any body got any pointers / advice about approaching this?

Tim

[Reply #7 on:]

You'll want to start by reading up on hobby servos, stepper motors, and DC gearmotors and how they're controlled.  A little on robotics, too, perhaps.

Adafruit has a popular entry-level Motor Shield that comes with software and tutorials, check adafruit.com.  Sparkfun has more motor control modules than you can shake a stick at, also with software: sparkfun.com.  Pololu is a popular place for people building robots, which of course are all about motors; see http://www.pololu.com

-br

[Reply #8 on:]

Brilliant, thanks for the info. I am actually looking to buy a weather station that will be compatible with Arduino. They have sold out at Spark Fun.

Do you think just a regular weather station bought from Maplin / Amazon would work?

http://www.google.co.uk/products/catalog?q=weather+station&hl=en&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.r_qf.&bpcl=39650382&biw=1439&bih=735&um=1&ie=UTF-8&cid=9348449126309897693&sa=X&ei=zfHFUP7wGYLOhAfQooCoBg&ved=0CIkBEPMCMAE

Tim