This project created 2 wireless masks that vocoded whatever performers said into animal sounds. The “deerwolf” produced mammal sounds. The “batdragonfly” produced insect/bird sounds.
The pet sounds project ended up producing quite a few things, depending on how the project is considered. The best byproduct for me is that is the realization that I’ve created a reasonably affordable platform to create wireless “performance devices”. The design, construction, and components used in the masks end up being right around $100. You will need a laptop, but most people who would be building the masks already own that. When you’re done, you’ll have a masks that wirelessly vocodes whatever you say, in any way you like.
The biggest letdown of the semester was my inability to get an Xbee and an accelerometer to work reliably alongside an analog FM transmitter (on the same circuit). As far as I can tell, I was unable to isolate the circuit enough to get reliable information from the accelerometer, and that meant that motion sensing masks were not an option.
Read on for all the tech specs.
