GuitArduino

Inspiration

The inspiration for GuitArduino came from the desire to create a seamless and efficient way to tune guitars without the need for manual adjustments. We wanted to leverage the capabilities of Arduino, smartphone technology, and IoT to make the tuning process easier and more precise for musicians.

What it does

GuitArduino provides a motorized clamp that, when attached to a tuning peg, tunes the guitar string as a user plays the string.

How we built it

GuitArduino automatically tunes a guitar by using a smartphone microphone to capture pitch readings. The Arduino IoT app on the phone relays these readings to the Arduino Cloud, where the Arduino fetches the results. A stepper motor connected to the tuning peg of the guitar adjusts the string tension based on the measured and desired frequencies. The tuner is activated by a motion sensor to ensure that tuning only occurs when the user is not actively playing the guitar.

Challenges we ran into

The largest challenge we ran into was with getting the IoT setup to work. Unfortunately, we ran into a number of issues getting the phone data to transmit to the cloud and then to the Arduino board.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud that we did not settle for relying on a direct frequency signal to imitate the idea of a microphone, but instead figured out a way to get accurate frequency readings despite Arduino's limitations.

What we learned

We learned how to use the Arduino IoT app to leverage our smartphones' numerous sensors for Arduino projects. Additionally, we gained knowledge about 3D printing, which we used for our clamp as well as a guitar headstock model for testing.

What's next for GuitArduino

Our next step for GuitArduino would be to automatically detect which string is being tuned (as some tuner apps are capable of). Currently, we specify which string is being tuned in our program.

Built With

• arduino