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Participant project

Air Instruments

Air Instruments — an invisible drum kit, piano, and synth played by striking the air. A webcam on an Arduino UNO Q watches the player's hands; snapping a hand down through an invisible line instantly triggers a drum sound (or a Fmaj7/Amaj7 chord in synth mode) in their AirPods, with the board's LED matrix flashing to the beat. Two physical buttons turn it into a loop station: recording a groove, layering sounds on top, and switching instruments—all running standalone on the board without a laptop.

Air Instruments — photo 1

Inside the build

Team Himanshu

What they built: Air Instruments — an invisible drum kit, piano, and synth played by striking the air. A webcam on an Arduino UNO Q watches the player's hands; snapping a hand down through an invisible line instantly triggers a drum sound (or a Fmaj7/Amaj7 chord in synth mode) in their AirPods, with the board's LED matrix flashing to the beat. Two physical buttons turn it into a loop station: recording a groove, layering sounds on top, and switching instruments—all running standalone on the board without a laptop.

What it solves: Instruments are loud, bulky, and expensive, and drum practice can annoy others. Air Instruments gives musicians, kids learning rhythm, and anyone who taps on desks a silent, pocket-sized instrument—audio goes straight to earphones, and the looper lets a single player build full multi-layer beats with bare hands. It also serves as a template for gesture-controlled instruments: swapping the samples allows the same strike engine to become a piano, synth, or sampler.

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