Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

My Science Fair project consists of creating an instrument that can be played without any physical contact and with the use of RFID technology to make it able to play a wide variety of sounds to simulate other instruments such as a violin, a piano or even the human voice The Theremin is a musical instrument with electronic tone generation. It consists of a box with radio tubes producing oscillations at two sound-wave frequencies above the range of hearing; together, they produce a lower audible frequency equal to the difference in their rates of vibration. Pitch is controlled by moving the hand or a baton toward or away from an antenna at the right bottom of the box.

As a musician myself and my great enthusiasm for music, when I first found out about this amazing instrument I instantly became interested in it. I automatically started to think about ways on how I can make this instrument even more unique. I came across a project on how RFID detectors can be used to play music with the help of a RFID reading software and music synthesizer. I came up with the idea that by using RFID detectors on my fingertips and by also placing them along the theremin, other instrumental sounds can be played depending on the type of RFID detector that is placed on my fingers. The RFID detectors would have to be connected to a computer with the RFID reading software and I will also need to record all the instrumental sounds that I would want the RFID to detect so that it can be played by the theremin.

The main obstacle that I am facing is how will I be able to make the radio frequency waves or signals created by the RFID detectors to interact with those created by the theremin. How will I be able to make the theremin make in distinctive instrumental sounds?

Below are two links of the two projects in which I am basing my own project on.
Please feel free to revise them to get a better understanding of my ideas.

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... p049.shtml

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... p035.shtml

Hello gustavopadilla,

Welcome to the forum. Your project sounds very cool. And its great to have a science project that fits with another interest like music.

I'm sure there are many ways to combine the theremin and RFID concepts into one instrument. Here's one idea that came to mind after reading your post:

Have several RFID tags arranged in a column to simulate the pitch control of a theremin. Each tag would represent a different sound frequency. As you pass the RFID reader in your hand over the column of tags, the reader sends different codes to the computer. The computer then generates the sound frequency. To get different instrumental sounds, you could have a second set of RFID tags that represent different sounds. Passing a second RFID reader (in your other hand) over these would trigger the computer to apply a different sound to the frequency your selected with the first set of tags.

I hope this helps. Please ask again if you have more questions.

A. Norman

Thank you so much A. Norman,

As you may know, the sound omitted is already programmed in the RFID reading software and when the sound is made, the sound is only temporary. Are you familiar with the software used, or know a way in which the sound can be continuous as long as I keep the RFID tags in range of the detector?

Hi gustavopadilla,

You are most welcome.

Sorry, but I'm not familiar with the RFID software. I did review the information provided at this link:

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... #procedure

From the examples shown (figures 10 and 11 in the Procedure tab) it appears that you can write a short computer program to do what you want. I think you can write the program so that the sound is turned when your RFID reader detects a tag, and stays on until you choose another RFID tag.

Good luck. Please ask again if you have more questions.

A. Norman