Waterfall Harp

Olive Au (2001)
Waterfall Harp. CPSC 581 course deliverable (Saul Greenberg, Instructor), Department of Computer Science, University of Calgary, Canada, March.

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Abstract

Waterfall Harp plays musical chords as people 'strum' the water.  Olive began with a commercial appliance that circulated water (via a small pump) to make a continuous waterfall. It also had a light in its base to backlight the water. She added three light sensors at its top (connected to a PhidgetInterfaceKit), and used clay to funnel water so that each sensor had a water rivulet beneath it. She then programmed the backend software so that a particular musical chord would play whenever a particular light sensor was blocked for a small time duration.  As people 'strummed' the water by moving their fingers through the rivulets (thus blocking the sensors), musical chords corresponding to each rivulet would play.

Bibtex entry

@MISC { 2001-WaterfallHarp-Au-0.26,
AUTHOR = { Olive Au },
TITLE = { Waterfall Harp },
HOWPUBLISHED = { CPSC 581 course deliverable (Saul Greenberg, Instructor), Department of Computer Science, University of Calgary, Canada },
YEAR = { 2001 },
MONTH = { March },
}