The Xylofun

You think playing the xylophone with your hands is boring? Me too! I have just the thing for you. The Xylofun takes the weight of your hands. You'll be able to play the most beautiful music with just a joystick and a button. Let's get started!

For this "useful" piece of machinery you'll be needing the next pieces of hardware and materials.

Hardware

• Arduino Uno
• USB Cable
• 2 - Servo MICRO motors
• Jumper wires
• PS2 Joystick
• RobotDyn button module (the blue one, because I like blue)
• Breadboard

The other materials

• A piece of wood for the case
• 3 - circles with a diameter of 70 mm and which are 5 mm thick
• 2 - 3D printed cogs with a diameter of 70 mm (there are easily downloadable cogs on the internet which you can 3D print)
• Old block set
• Old curtain
• Needle and thread
• The xylophone with a stick (of course the main character of this project)
• Bolts and nuts
• Screws
• Some fishing line
• A bead
• Some tape to stick the wires to the case

Got all these materials? Good! Let's work on the Arduino schematic. As the picture shows you have to connect the wires to a piece of breadboard. I soldered these wires. For me it was quite hard to get the soldering right. Please avoid making a monstrosity of your soldering work as I did.

You haven't given up yet? Good! Let's continue with the code. For me the coding was really a challenge, so let me save you the agony and give you the code I already prepared. Mind you that the variables and the comments are in Dutch. Put it trough a translator if you have trouble understanding the Dutch language.

Did you test the code and it didn't break down? Good! Let's continue with the box. I used a piece of 100 mm thick wood which I had lying around. I used this to built the case. Depending on your sizes of your components you'll have to figure out the proportions and the size of the box on the fly. The sizes for the box don't matter too much. Only the mechanism part with the cogs. Keep it as level as possible, otherwise the cogs won't be able to turn.

Congrats, you made it! I hope you enjoyed this product as much as I did. It was a lot of fun, I learned a lot and I hope you did too. I wish you lots of fun with this useful product which is definitely not a lot more effort than holding the stick with your hands.

Thanks for reading. Bye!