Penny whistles as capacitive sensors

[Scott Winburn]

Thanks for the invite!  I'm not sure if this counts as "circuit bending" because i'm not quite familiar with the term, so I thought i'd post this as its own topic just in case.   It involves using a penny whistles as capacitance sensors.  The sensors control solenoids in the air supply, deciding weather or not the air reaches the whistles.  In other words, placing your hand near a whistle causes it to play.

 

 

I am using a Picaxe microcontroller (18M2).  This is my first time using any kind of microcontroller and it's so very cool.  I write the program on my laptop & upload it to the chip via a USB cable.   The circuit board you see isn't really part of the circuit design, it's just to make programming & testing easier.  Here is the circuit design as of now:

 

This controls only 1 whistle for testing/learning.  The pot controls the sensitivity of the whistle sensor.  Right now I have it set so that it triggers when my hand gets withing about 4 inches of the whistle.  I don't have my solenoid yet so I am just triggering an LED for now.  Hopefully i'll have my test solenoid early next week.

 

If you have an experience with air control, solendoids, etc.. please speak up with any suggestions or concerns.   I'm a total newb at electronics, pneumatics, and microcontrollers.   The setup i'm using here is working great so far... which has got me super excited get my test solenoid.  I ordered a used one on ebay... 1/2 watt - 12v.  I think i'll go check to see if the mail is here yet.. :)

 

[smojo]

This is fantastic Scott - kinda like a theremin and yes it definitely belongs in here, thanks for posting. Don't have any experience with this type of thing to advise you on but I've always got ideas if you want to run them by me.