ATLAS Creative Technology and Design master's student Ruhan Yang聽and two聽teammates won first place for their project, e-Trombone,聽at聽Georgia Tech's聽(GT) annual Moog Hackathon,聽beating 11 teams, taking home聽$3,000, and securing a place in GT's聽prestigious Guthman Musical Instrument Competition.聽
Held Feb. 28聽- March 1 at GT's School of Music in Atlanta, Moog's聽48-hour competition is an invention marathon to design聽and build聽novel musical instruments using Moog platforms and other software and hardware prototyping tools.
The trio聽built e-Trombone with PVC pipes sprayed聽with glossy paint to simulate a聽metallic look and inserted wind sensors, allowing players to create brass-like sounds through different blowing techniques. The instrument is聽played like a conventional trombone聽and the addition of a Moog Werkstatt (a compact analog synthesizer) allows users聽to play sounds that聽would be impossible with聽traditional trombone parts.
"I still cannot believe it," said Yang, an active member of Ellen Do's ACME Lab in the ATLAS Institute, adding聽that the聽e-Trombone did not work until the final demo portion of the hackathon.聽"We overcame many disadvantages, including using聽limited聽tools, and worked聽till the last minute聽to make this happen."
Yang's winning team, which included聽Georgia Tech students Xiangyi Li and聽Jiewen Wang, was聽automatically entered in聽the Guthman Musical Instrument Competition,聽an event dedicated to identifying the "newest and greatest ideas in music," with聽10 invited musical inventors from around the world sharing聽their creations and ideas about the future of music. During the聽2020 competition, each finalist will be paired with a skilled musician from the Atlanta area. The musicians will learn the instruments and perform a demonstration concert.
Yang said she decided聽to make an electric brass instrument, then narrowed it down to聽a聽trombone after fellow CTD student John Williams loaned her his trombone and gave her some lessons. During the hackathon, Yang聽did the hardware design and machining, Wang designed the circuitry and handled the coding,聽and Li helped to build the circuits.聽
"Our goal was just to聽complete this cool project," Yang said.聽
