Turning light and movement into sound

Calliope mini is a single-board computer that was developed by the non-profit company Calliope for playful learning and is mainly used in primary schools. It is equipped with a light, temperature, acceleration and position sensor as well as a loudspeaker, microphone and various other connections, making the Calliope mini versatile in terms of programming and expansion. Programming can be done via an online editor – such as the Open Roberta Lab, a cloud-based graphic programming environment created on the initiative of the Fraunhofer Institute for Intelligent Analysis and Information Systems IAIS.

In a workshop with Winfried Gerling and Ulrich Richtmeyer, the PhD students of the SENSING research group programmed the Calliope mini to convert light and movement into sound. This turns the microcontroller into an electronic sound instrument with which the room lighting can be explored in a dance-like way and the movements of its wearer can be set to music.