Piano Aid

Christopher G. Sayers et al.

Pianos provide recreational and educational value and is a cornerstone of the culture experienced worldwide today. Despite the many benefits and enrichment music brings these benefits are often inaccessible or difficult to learn by most people but especially to those of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (DHH) community due to its innate auditory nature. While adaptive instruments have been proposed to address this gap, many remain conceptual or fail to reach production because of high development costs and limited commercial markets. This project presents an economically feasible alternative in the design of an adaptive digital piano that enables both DHH and hearing users alike to share their enjoyment and learning of music alike.

The piano combines both hardware and software components to translate musical input into visual and tactile feedback while keeping the feel of a traditional piano. The design process was built around accessibility-oriented features all throughout the piano. Maintaining portability and accessibility as a goal, the final proposed design maintains Hall Effect sensor-based keys, a GUI that allows the user to engage with learning or recreational tools built within, and integrated hardware such as the Raspberry Pi and Arduino. Altogether it forms the envisioned digital piano: practical, feasible, maintaining a shared inclusivity, and ultimately a learning tool.