Piano to Message

My friend competes in DECA, which is a business competition. Part of the competition involves creating a booth to pitch the business you develop.

One day he asked me if I could create something interactive for his business. His guidelines to me were exactly as follows: since his business is music related, he wanted a piano that when keys were pressed, somehow a message would appear. He wanted to display certain core values about his business.

Immediately as he was telling me this, I thought of somewhere between 10 to 15 different ideas. I thought about having a microcontroller with a mic that senses pitch, and prints out a message based on which pitch it hears; I considered having a 3D-printed touch keyboard that would light up a sign with the corrosponding message. Ultimately, after conveying all my ideas to him, he settled on a midi keyboard that attaches to a computer program that graphically flashes messages on the screen.

Since his booth was a single table, I was worried about taking up too much space. I went to several thrift stores in hopes of finding a midi controller small enough. I was worried if I didn't find anything I'd have to order something like an Akai Mini, which could take days to ship.
Fortunately, at the last thrift store I visited, a bright blue mini piano was just sitting in the electronics section. I couldn't ask for anything better since the color scheme of the competition was also blue.

credit: https://www.kupujemprodajem.com/muzicki-instrumenti/midi-kontroleri/studio-49-midi-klavijatura-adapter/oglas/138239635

One of my favorite simple graphics libraries for quickly drafting interactive visuals is p5js. Since I was under a tight time constraint, I quickly wrote the program for the web browser. I used webmidi to read the midi controller from the web.

As I finished the project the day before my friend would be flying out to another state to compete in DECA, I got a message from him:

I learned that he would not have access to power outlets. Within a few hours before his flight, I jerry-rigged several D-sized batteries together in a paper towel tube and ripped apart an old power cable. Fortunately, TSA did not detain him for having something that could have been mistaken for a bomb.

yes, that tube with the medicine bottles and loose wire is the battery

In the end, it worked great and I'm glad my last minute project survived the trip.