(NFR) The Rainbow Flaming Unicorns request the help of those who play instruments and sing.

L

lana-in-fl

Well-known member
This is my annual request for help on behalf of my robotics teams. The Rainbow Flaming Unicorns are the most adorable group of girls you could hope for. The theme for FIRST LEGO League this year is World Class - teams have to find an innovative way of teaching a skill. This is in addition to the robot competition - we haven't started working on that yet.

My Unicorns are very musical. This is their invention:

"Our idea is an app where you can take a picture of your music and it plays it for you. Here's how it works. Once you download and open the app for free, you choose your instrument or voice range and take a picture of your selection of music. The phone processes the music and once it's done, it plays it for you. The app then records you playing and tells you what you're doing wrong. If you tap a note you don't know how to play, it shows you a fingering chart and/or plays that note. It will have a tuner, metronome, and a transposing calculator. It'll be available on iOS and Android, of course. Welcome to Pocket Tunes."

They are trying to create it for real, but by the rules of the competition, they just have to get the idea, develop it, and disseminate it. They would greatly appreciate feedback from musical people on whether this would be a good idea, and how they could improve it.

Thank you so much!

Most of these girls are in 8th grade, though they have adopted two 6th graders and are training them up. I will miss them SO much when they go to high school next year.

 
Thank you both smileys/smile.gif If you have never been to a FIRST competition

especially a high school FRC competition, you should go. It's party time for kids who love learning. What a rush! Our robots are little LEGO robots, but so cool!

 
I would definitely buy an app like this for my son who plays the guitar -

I think it would be very useful and a great learning tool for every level of player.

Fantastic idea!

 
I love everything about this..except that it's free. It's a valuable tool and should charge for it.

 
dd said "very good idea"... Nothing like it that she was aware of it. Even the sites that she uses

do not use photo recognition. Very, very helpful for learning music in a short period of time, especially if you have limited experience with site reading.
She said she would "Definitely get it!" if it existed.
She was curious about the sound banks... (?).
She said she would be happy to learn / discuss more w/ your team. Send me a PM, if you are interested...

Good luck and have fun!
Regards,
Barb

 
Never thought I'd see the phrase 'rainbow flaming unicorns' on this board...Steve and Joe aside smileys/smile.gif

 
I tried to send a pm, but I don't think it went.

She can email them at milweeroboticsATgmailDOT com

Thanks!! It's so important for them to get feedback!

 
I wrote down her email for dd. She will reach out tomorrow. I know over the years you have

brought up this program. It sounds so cool. We do not have anything like it around here. (You can edit above post, if you do not want the address "out there")

 
Lana, how do you want the responses? I've included comments from a worker.

(She plays harmonica for her husband's 70's band and has 6 screens worth of apps on her phone.)

"I recommend they stick with ONE INSTRUMENT in the beginning and ADD on, if the app works.

Need more specifics about ‘tells you want you’re doing wrong’. Will it say things like ‘INCOMPLETE CHORD, WRONG NOTE, WRONG CHORD, SHARP, FLAT??’

I don’t understand what it is meant by a ‘picture of your music selection’…sheet music, an album, a CD, a recording on computer…etc?

The app would need to playback the full musical file in a lossless form, not a .mpg or other sound compression file type, so no musical values are lost. Otherwise, you will be comparing apples to oranges. Lossless files consume more memory, so this will need to be considered fully.

Is this app strictly matching chords and notes played to chords and notes heard? Or will the app also use SMPTE or other musical timing software to determine if the timing is accurate? Please note that it may be impossible for the app to have 100% accuracy of timing, as humans still have better timing than machines. My advice is to leave timing out of it until everything else works perfectly.

This project sounds REALLY hard. Good luck!!!"

 
Oh my, what great comments! THANK you!

I have copied them for my girls, who are excited to be getting feedback already. Thank you very much for doing this!

 
I would love this, I keep trying to learn to read music, then forget, repeat ad nauseum

but if I hear the music I can easily repeat it, so an app like this would be great!!! and I have not heard of anything like this before...

 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top