"PipKey" Bluetooth MIDI Instrument

PipKey is a handheld MIDI instrument that iterates on the concepts displayed in my ‘MagneTrack’ project. It works wirelessly using BLE and a new keystone system for tracking.

The goal was to create a highly portable and musically intuitive design that uses a second passive component, the arm slide, to track the position of the all-in-one device as it moves like a cello/guitar up and down the arm. Rather than use magnetic pogo pin connectors, I opted for a smooth yet springy battery connector and a series of conductive PLA ‘keystones’ that create a pattern of connections that can be read by the microcontroller's input pullup as different finger positions. The buttons play notes at that given position and the joystick shifts either up or down an octave.

For reference, you can find the previous iteration of the PipKey project, the MagneTrack, over here:
https://www.printables.com/model/931106-magnetrack-midi-instrument


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