Arduino/Piezo Drum Game

This is a school project make by student in Malmö University by using Arduino. The concept is like the SDO online game or O2jam that user need to hit the note according to different column. In this project the student used LED as the note and user need to hit the 3 different drum-alike device correctly to score the game. Here is some screen shot of the project and the video of it.


Basic Structure of Drum Game


Student is playing the drum game by hitting the drum according to the lighted LED.

Arduino Drum Kit

Arduino Drum Kit is a set of electronic part that contain circuit board, resistors, diodes and pins. It allow any people to DIY their very own drum kit. Arduino drum kit going to be used in my final year project.



There is a tutorial on how to build the circuit at the link below:
http://www.spikenzielabs.com/SpikenzieLabs/DrumKitKit.html

This is another link which teaching how to use Piezo elements to detect vibration like knocking the table etc.
http://www.arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/Knock

Here is a video of example how Arduino work as drum kit.

Drum Therapy

Title: Therapeutic Effect of Drumming by Michael Drake

Michael Drake is a famous writer and recording artist. He has discover that the therapeutic rhythm techniques have been used for thousand years in create and maintain physical, mental and spiritual health.



There are many benefit in drum therapy:
-Release tension, anxiety and stress: Drum therapy can greatly helping release tension with its rhythm. Medical research shows that group drumming can help in high-stress occupation in release the tension.

-Help control chronic pain: Drumming can distract our attention from pain and grief. Furthermore, drumming helps to promote production of endorphins and endogenous opiate which function like a painkiller in helping control pain.

-Drumming boost immune systems

-Produce deeper self-awareness: Drumming candroduce self-awareness in ourselves by inducing synchronous brain activity.

-Drumming induces natural altered states of consciousness

-Drumming creates a sense of connectedness with self and others

-Drumming helps us to experience being in resonance with the natural rhythms of life

-Drumming releases negative feelings, blockages, and emotional trauma

-Drumming places one in the present moment: Drumming helps alleviate stress that is created from hanging on to the past or worrying about the future. When one plays a drum, one is placed squarely in the here and now. One of the paradoxes of rhythm is that it has both the capacity to move your awareness out of your body into realms beyond time and space, and to ground you firmly in the present moment.

-Drumming provides a medium for individual self-realization: Drumming helps reconnect us to our core, enhancing our sense of empowerment and stimulating our creative expression.

Survey on Stress

Here is a survey on the how people manage their stress and research on music that can help them in release tension. Here is the result:



Most of the participants of the survey are student. Most of the people here feel that the environment at their working or study place is very stress and more than half had the feeling to burnout due to over stress. There are about 1/3 of the interviewer doesn't clear about the consequences of over stress. All the interviewer state that they wish to have a place on their workplace or campus that can let them release the tension and recharge their energy to back to their top form.

For the survey on therapies in release stress, music therapy get the highest vote followed by massage therapy. Spa treatment therapy and art therapy get the same vote on third place, and drum therapy is next. The least vote in the survey is cognitive therapy because maybe of the therapy itself is not well-known enough and other therapy is more fun compare to this. For the music people think that R&B can help release the stress most efficiently and followed by jazz, hip-hop and rock and pop.

Type of Therapies

Drum Therapy: Drum therapy has existed for more than thousand years and used by shamans or healers in village to create and maintain mentally, physical and spiritual health. Drum therapy is a kind of self-expression and user use the rhythm and go into ecstasy. Drum therapy not only have a good effect on stress release, but also increasing the speed of physical healing and good for our health.

Art Therapy: Art therapy is a form of therapeutic practice which uses art in order to express their emotions and problems. User can express their feeling and creativity in this therapy. This therapy can make users relieve their stress very quickly in a direct way. There are many tools that user can use for example paint, water color, pencil, pen, and many more. Users express the mood on a board or cardboard and randomly create a unique painting by splashing, drawing, coloring, graffiti and others.

Music therapy: Everybody listen to music, and it seems to become a part of life to many people. Music can relieve our stress with the rhythm even we not conscious about it. Choose kind of music that you comfortable with, force yourself listen to the music that you don’t like will only increase your stress. The beat and rhythm in the music has calming effect which can even use to reduce pain.

Hypnotherapy: In this treatment, hypnotherapist put the patient into a fake sleep or hypnotic sleep status, into their own imagination. Patient needs to relax and follow a series of instruction say by hypnotherapist. In this status, hypnotherapist will aid the patient into their problem and lead the patient to a positive way, hence find the method to solve it. Hypnotherapy not only use to relieve stress, but also help to change individual’s bad habit, anxiety, pain management and many more.

Aromatherapy: Aromatherapy is a treatment which uses essential oil to promote and restore physical, mental and emotional wellness. There are many kind of essential oil which has different effects and results. There are two ways to apply aromatherapy: inhalation or skin application method. The smell helps the individual to relief tension and other side effect of stress like anxiety, headache and others. Individual can meditate or sleeping in this therapy to boost the result.

Cognitive Therapy: This therapy is a bit different from hypnotherapy. Patient talk to therapist face to face on their problem and therapist will try to lead patient’s mind into a positive way to relief stress. For example two people stuck in a lift because of blackout. One may think that this is the opportunity to rest and the other one may feel stress and anxiety. This therapy is basically depend on how we think and gives support to the patient for their problem.

Massage Therapy: Have yourself a full-body massage is also a good way to release stress. Massage therapy provide a relaxing experience by apply hand strokes on the body to relief the mind and body. Nowadays massage therapy not only restrict to act by hand, but also other modern tools like stone, water and many more to help soothing the mind and body.

Sound Therapy: This therapy unlike music therapy, the sound of nature like birds organized in a rhythmic form into our brain and nervous system to soothing the mind and body. The therapist decides the length of time to listen according to condition of patient. Stress can be relieved through these harmonies and vitalize sound, make the patient feels like close to nature.

Spa Treatment Therapy: This therapy using spa to relief our tension. There are many kind of spa therapy out there, for example hydrotherapy which using water to relax out muscle and mind. Individual can relax in a hot tub, under a waterfall or even a vapor cave. Besides that, mud treatment is also one kind of spa therapy which used mud to cover the body.

Meditation: Stress relieve can be archived by using meditation by clear your mind and adjust your inhalation and exhalation. Individual need to sit still and relax the body muscle, then try to letting go your thought. Meditation can be done at home or at a silent place, and you can hire an instructor to help you in the process if needed. Meditation usually combines with other therapy like aromatherapy to boost up the stress relieves effect.

FYP Context

Selected Project Arrangement

The selected proposal for my final year project is Proposal 1, which is Drum, Music and Art. Below is some simple mind-map and first stage design of the final year project. The elements that will be used in my project is drum, music and art which all of them are type of therapies in release stress. This is an experimental installation to test whether the effect of these therapies will increase by combining them together or vice versa.


Mind-map for stress

     
Sketch                                                                 Colored Sketch

Proposal 3

Research Topic:

Learning in Game.

Background:

Educational games are a great tool for building foundation math and language skills that today's elementary school curriculum requires. These learning games and songs for kids are fun, teach important skills for preschool and elementary school kids. Educational games help build skills in math, language, science, social studies,and many more.

Problem Identification:

There are many games developed but not many of them are educational. Kids are living in this advance generation and they might learning something bad from the games.

Aim and Objective:

To help the kids leaning and exercise while playing game.

Motivation:

Kids can no longer playing games on gaming console but with moving their body too. They also can improve their knowledge in playing the game.

Ideation and Concept:

There will be a stick in front of projector which function like a joystick and user can shake or move the stick to play the game.

Review, Analysis and Precedence Studies:

Like adults, kids need exercise. Most children need at least an hour of physical activity every day. Regular exercise helps children

1. Feel less stressed
2. Feel better about themselves
3. Feel more ready to learn in school
4. Keep a healthy weight
5. Build and keep healthy bones, muscles and joints
6. Sleep better at night

As kids spend more time watching TV, they spend less time running and playing. Parents should limit TV, video game and computer time. Parents can set a good example by being active themselves. Exercising together can be fun for everyone. Competitive sports can help kids stay fit. Walking or biking to school, games, dancing, bowling and yoga are some other ways for kids to get exercise.

Design Approach:

A stick set in front of projector and there will be variety of mini games for kids to play and learn.

Research:

Proposal 2

Research Topic:

Exercise with Game!

Background:

With all the new toys and inventions coming out, with all the little motorized scooters and what not, and the overwhelming amount of video and computer games that kids are playing, the weight/health problems of the kids is becoming worse. Once the kids have already suffered and are obviously not in the condition and child should be in, the parents and society itself goes and tries to blame the schools for their bad food, or hell even McDonalds for their food not being healthy enough. Whatever happened to going outside and playing in the backyard, or taking your kids to the park.

Problem Identification:

With the advance technology nowadays, we can play any kind of games on our mobile devices or computer. That had cause us to lack exercise and hence increasing the happening of body illness.

Aim and Objective:

To combine the entertainment and exercise for a healthier life.

Motivation:

People nowadays are extremely lack of exercise and healthy lifestyle. This project can let the user playing games and exercise our body in the process.

Ideation and Concept:

In this project the devices that will be used is bicycle alike device and variety of mini games that create high score and people need to break the record by cycling on the device to play the games.

Review, Analysis and Precedence Studies:

Bicycling has several advantages over other exercises:

1. Cycling exercises the heart better than walking without the pounding of jogging.
2. One can ride a bicycle almost anywhere, at any time of the year, and at low cost.
3. Little or no time has to be lost, as bike travel can be used to get to work, perform errands, or enjoy the outdoors.
4. Commuting by bike reduces pollution that causes asthma and bronchitis. A commuting cyclist is also less exposed to air pollution than a commuting motorist.

On the down side, cycling does involve some risk of injury which has been greatly exaggerated by fearmongers. Cycling actually has similar risks to traveling by automobile. The British Medical Association has estimated that the health benefits of cycling outweigh the risks by twenty to one.

Design Approach:

There will be a bicycle alike device set in front of the screen and in order to play the game user need to cycle the bicycle.

Research:

Proposal 1

Research Topic:

Drum, Music and Art

Background:

Drum, music and art are the ways of releasing stress. There are many therapy nowadays to help people release their tension on work, study or many more.

Drum therapy is an ancient approach that uses rhythm to promote healing and self-expression. From the shamans of Mongolia to the Minianka healers of West Africa, therapeutic rhythm techniques have been used for thousands of years to create and maintain physical, mental, and spiritual health.

Current research is now verifying the therapeutic effects of ancient rhythm techniques. Recent research reviews indicate that drumming accelerates physical healing, boosts the immune system and produces feelings of well-being, a release of emotional trauma, and reintegration of self.

Problem Identification:

There are so many kind of ways to release stress and this is a experimental project to test by combining different kind of therapy is it help to boost the effect of release stress or vice versa.

Aim and Objective:

To test the effect of different therapy in release stress by combining them.

Motivation:

Stress are everywhere in this busy world. I hope that it can provide a efficient way for people to release their tension and stress.

Ideation and Concept:

I'll be using drum alike device, projector to project the color splash and different genre of music in this project. By combining them the scene will look like a stage and hence helps to release our stress.

Review, Analysis and Precedence Studies:

Drumming induces deep relaxation, lowers blood pressure, and reduces stress. Stress, according to current medical research, contributes to nearly all disease and is a primary cause of such life-threatening illnesses as heart attacks, strokes, and immune system breakdowns. A recent study found that a program of group drumming helped reduce stress and employee turnover in the long-term care industry and might help other high-stress occupations as well.

Art therapy is a form of therapeutic practice which uses art in order to deal with emotions and issues. It is a therapy which empowers the user through the use of art and creativity.

Many experts suggest that it is the rhythm of the music or the beat that has the calming effect on us although we may not be very conscious about it. They point out that when we were a baby in our mother's womb, we probably were influenced by the heart beat of our mother. We respond to the soothing music at later stages in life, perhaps associating it with the safe, relaxing, protective environment provided by our mother.

Design Approach:

The scene will be look like a little stage for user to express their feeling and release tension.

Research:

Little Bio

Name: Goh Tzen Hoong
Student ID: 1061105239
Faculty: Creative Multimedia
Major: Digital Media
Lecturer: Mr. Lim Kok Yoong, Mdm. Forest Lim

Hello World!

This is a blog created for my final year project. You can find the latest updates at here about my FYP.