Remember the Intel Edison, that small DIY devil with a dual-core Atom chip and x86 architecture? Depending on the application, the Intel Edison can be hooked up to an Arduino module or a breakout board, but this time Ben Heck decided to use one as the "heart" of a relatively unusual instrument: a laser harp. The project spans two of his episodes because it's definitely not simple, but every minute is worth watching.
The first time we talked about the Intel Edison was during its presentation in January 2014. At that time Intel had revealed an ultra-compact system about the size of an SD card. Today, the Edison is physically larger and a bit more powerful in terms of specifications, but it still holds a modest place in the DIY world. For one thing, its average price of $50 doesn't do it any favors, and for another, the web insists on comparing it (and not kindly, I might add) with the Raspberry Pi. At the end of the day, these are two completely different devices. The Raspberry Pi is a mini computer, while the Intel Edison is a module designed for the famous Internet of Things. It doesn't even have a video output because in its typical applications, video is irrelevant. One such application is the laser harp that Ben Heck built:
The Build Process
The project is quite extensive, so Ben and Karen had to handle the electromechanical side of the harp, while Felix prepared the main code and the entire power section for the Edison. In the opening minutes of the first episode we can see the basic operation of the laser harp, even though it's just a single emitter and receiver. The key is to repeat that success 24 times, get everything working connected to the Edison, and keep a close eye on voltages. The GPIO signals need to be associated with a MIDI instrument, but Felix explained that the virtual MIDI module wasn't present in the kernel used by the Edison, so he had to recompile.
The final phase of the project (already in the second episode) required calibrating each of the laser emitters and receivers so the Edison would register them as harp notes. Needless to say, this isn't a project to take lightly. Even with classic production tricks, it demanded the work of three people, so anyone wanting to do something similar will need to be very patient. The laser harp is just one demonstration of the Edison's potential, which personally could go far beyond the "IoT vision" if Intel so wished.
