Ukulele

Assistive Technology Hackathon / Mar 2020

Skills: User interviews, User testing, Assistive technology, product design, Arduino, laser cutting, CAD (solidworks),

This project was produced for the MIT Assistive Technology Hackathon (ATHack). ATHack matches groups of students with clients from the Cambridge/Boston area to prototype an assistive technology solution that addresses a problem they are having in their day-to-day life.

Eli, our client, wanted to be able to play the ukulele with his young daughter. He does not have full mobility in his left side, so he needed to be able to play with only his right hand. We designed Ukuleli, a strummer attachment with Eli that allows him to strum the ukulele by tapping his foot on the ground and finger chords with his right hand. Eli has full control over the strummer, and can change the speed and frequency with which he strums.

See our demo video:

Usage:

To strum, Eli taps his foot on the ground within our foot ‘pedal.’ Each tap is wirelessly communicated to the strummer attached to the ukulele. By tapping his right foot to the rhythm and fingering chords with his right hand, he has full control over the tempo and frequency with which he strums.

How it works:

The strummer is controlled wirelessly using radio communication, giving him flexibility in playing while sitting or standing. Eli taps his foot on the floor in our foot “pedal”, which detects his tap through a break in the laser beam sensor. Each time his foot breaks the beam, the strummer moves down and up once to strum the ukulele. The strummer is made with a small servo and custom-made pick arm made of sheet metal and compliant plastic.

We built a mounting fixture of acrylic to hold the strummer and electronics, which follows the natural curve of the ukulele. We used adjustable clamps to attach this to the ukulele so that the mount and strummer can be easily detached from the ukulele in one motion. The foot pedal is made of acrylic and the beam breakers are fixtured on either side.

Eli with our prototype!

On this project, I was responsible for the design of the mounting fixtures and foot pedal.