Hi everyone,
I just wanted to share a project I’ve been working on that started as a small Arduino experiment and ended up turning into something much bigger.
A while ago I built a kind of “Guitar Hero for piano” device to help visualize songs directly on the keyboard while you play. The idea was simple: show the notes moving across the keys so you can follow them in real time.
The hardware is pretty straightforward. I used an Arduino Uno to control a WS2813B LED strip mounted along the keyboard. The LEDs are spaced so that each one aligns with a piano key. The Arduino receives note data through a Bluetooth module from a small web app I built. The web app streams MIDI files directly to the device, which then lights up the corresponding keys on the strip.
It started as a fun build to see if the concept would work, but after refining it a bit I decided to turn it into a small product and launch it on Kickstarter.
To my surprise it reached its funding goal in about 20 hours.
If anyone is curious about the project, you can check it out here:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/drvelazquez/pianissimo-piano-learning-reimagined
Anyway, I’m just really happy with how this little Arduino project turned out and thought it would be fun to share it with people here.
Happy to answer questions if anyone is interested in the build.