This is really just a short note to file away for the future. Having recently discovered the Arduino, and seem many of the things it’s been made to do, I wanted to jot down a few ideas I might follow up myself one day. Real Work seems to get in the way most of the time, but with a long history of dabbling in radio and electronics and having built many gadgets, radios, remote controls and so forth, the Arduino looks like a fab way to interface with mechanicals.
So the first idea is a way to play some little bells to make tunes. I have a couple of sets of mini bells from B&Q some years ago which play a fixed set of Christmas tunes, controlled from a small box and a 12v supply. If I can interface each bell line to the Arduino using a (reed) relay [or even directly, perhaps?] I’d have an eight note one octave player. A quick look on the ‘net shows someone has made a similar bell tower from hand bells, however I’d like to be able to play more than one note at a time. Input from a text file of some sort – I’ve seen a form of music notation that might do the trick, but this needs more investigation. Ultimately I could build a multi-octave machine like a player piano or adapt a harmonium.
Second Idea: Temperature sensors on the heating system to measure use and efficiency – and combine with a gas meter reader to complete the energy consumption records via Pachube (i.e. to add the the electric consumption data).
Third idea: Talking parrot, an adaptation of an ambient orb. I have a USB parrot which only works on Win and has no recent drivers or apparent way to use in Linux/OSX – so I’m going to keep it for possible hacking in the future. Flap wings or nod head , open beak etc to relay data values of some sort. The higher the home energy use, the more the little bird will fidget.
