Music has the ability to help children and adults with developmental disabilities grow cognitively and engage socially. The goal of this project is to design a device to allow people with various physical abilities to pluck individual guitar strings. For this device, custom acrylic plectrums, each attached to two electromagnetic actuators, are suspended above the sound hole or pickups of the guitar on a mounting plate. A wooden frame clamping to the body of the guitar supports the mounting plate. Two Arduino Uno microcontrollers facilitate the alternating triggering of the actuator pairs. The mechanism can successfully pluck each individual guitar string, but will require improved coding and mounting design to allow for easier component adjustments based on guitar size and type.

• This report represents the work of one or more WPI undergraduate students submitted to the faculty as evidence of completion of a degree requirement. WPI routinely publishes these reports on its website without editorial or peer review.

Creator

• Eaton, Michael Joseph
• Kouninis, Andonios E
• Dube, Lorenzo M
• Zhou, Jia Cheng

Publisher

• Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Identifier

• E-project-032218-122758

Advisor

• Ault, Holly Keyes

Year

• 2018

Date created

• 2018-03-22

Resource type

• Major Qualifying Project

Major

• Mechanical Engineering
• Biomedical Engineering

Rights statement

• In Copyright