Musical Staircase | Portland Civic Design Fest 2017

Project Champion: Nick

What is your project about?

I’ll never forget visiting Christopher Janney’s musical staircase installation at the Boston Museum of Science as a kid. Since then, I’ve seen musical staircases in a few different places, but they all looked mostly the same, and I haven’t seen one in Portland… yet! So I wanted to build some musical stairs to put somewhere in Portland, and somehow make them unique. What if there was a musical staircase that changed sounds based on the time of day or weather? What if the staircase made sound in an analog way by ringing chimes or something? What if it played different scales from different musical cultures in the sound of their traditional instruments? What if we made two staircases that could “talk” to each other, so you could play an impromptu duet with a stranger?

What do you have so far?

My friend Abby at the Hack Portland meetup has been teaching me basic Arduino, and I was able to get a simple laser tripwire set up, so that when you break the beam, it turns on an LED. Next we need to figure out how to make sound, and then wire up a beam for each step. We also need to work on the design of the enclosure, so it could maybe run on a battery and be weather proof for outdoor use.

What do you need?

We could use all sorts of skills, but we’re especially looking for musician-types, Arduino hobbyists, or hardware engineer-types. We might need some hardware supplies like pvc tubes or other potential enclosures. We’ll also definitely need testers, so pay us a visit!

Don’t forget to RSVP to Portland Civic Design Fest, September 23rd at Mechanics Hall, Portland, Maine. Part of the National Day of Civic Hacking!

Hosted by Code for Maine, Portland Global Shapers, and Maine Charitable Mechanics Association. Sponsored by Ad Hoc, Workplace Transformation Facilitation, Seth Rigoletti: Leadership Coach, Project Login, and IDEXX.