Low Heat

Inspiration

The Low Heat instrument is loosely influenced by the Theramin and Imogen Heap's musical gloves demonstration at TED. We believe that music and performance art should be interactive as the nature of music and performance is highly improvisational and expressive. We hope to allow artists to utilise fluid motions to control MIDI instruments, LED strips, etc. to bolster their performances and play music in a unique way that is not possible with any other instrument.

What it does

Low Heat instruments control the note, fader, and filters of a classic DAW.

How I built it

Low Heat was built in Node.js as a data processing backend, Python and RTMIDI to translate data to a MIDI signal, and FL Studio to actually play the sound. The web page v was built with React.js.

Challenges I ran into

Sensor data is pretty difficult to work with. A lot of weird bugs with the sensors themselves, and we had a lot of trouble learning new things (like canvas and three.js etc, async).

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

This was all of our first IoT hacks and so we're proud to be able to create something new and exciting, especially since it is out of our comfort zone (as we mainly like to write software).

What I learned

Refactor your code before it becomes way too messy. ALWAYS recheck your code if tthere's an error, every single line. You never know what it could be.

What's next for Low Heat

This device must compete with other instruments that do a similar thing. We believe our expertise in musical performance, user experience, and bringing a tool to mass market will give us an edge over competitors.