Creation of the rainstick:
We attached to toilet paper rolls together. Initially, we use tape to cover the open ends of the roll. However, that didn’t emphasise the sound clearly. It sounded quite dull when he aluminium balls hit the surface of the tape. So we ended up using aluminium to emphasise the sound further. We created a stand rainstick, however the weight of the rainstick was heavier than the stand, so we needed a platform, some sort of rectangular structure and weight in the empty space to balance the overall weight of the structure.
- Tissue paper rolls
2. Creating the “drum-skin” for the rainstick
3. Rolled aluminium pieces to create rain-drop effect
4. Final Structure
Ways of improving the project:
We attached a piezo element to one end of the rain stick to complements the sound of the rain stick. Ideally the piezo element would have reverberated with the end cap to turn the entire rain stick into a resonance chamber, but we could not get the aluminum sufficiently tight.
We used the example code for the servo, modified to pause at each end and allow the rain stick to come to equilibrium. Ideally we would have rungs throughout the rain stick to increase the noise it makes, but they are not present in this version.
The musical melody was made extremely last minute, and it was quite upbeat. It did not provide the relaxing tone needed for an effective soundscape. Next time, ideally we would spend more time focusing on the quality of the musical piece to genuinely resemble an accurate sleep soundscape.