For this week, we are featuring Eirik Brandal’s 3D printed sound sculpture.
Finding Beauty in What’s Often Hidden Away 
The main motivation behind this project is bringing the 3D printed plastic material to the forefront.
Most DIY builders may be inclined to hide 3D printed parts as they are regarded as unsightly and just for practical purpose. (I don’t know about you, but I personally love the look of the 3D printed parts)
In contrast, almost all of this sculpture is made out of 3D printed material.
Fusion 360 model
Evolving Soundscape 
The sculpture plays “…a new ever-evolving song…” every time it is restarted. At the heart of the project, there is a Daisy Seed that outputs a generative music that is programmed in Arduino IDE. Oscillators and effects (such as delay, Moog-emulated filter, and overdrive) from the DaisyDuino library were utilized.
In order to play the audio out of a speaker that’s mounted inside of the project, LM380 amplifier was used.
The result is an immersive soundscape that complements the form of the sculpture and the visual pattern of the LED matrix. Speaking of which…
Flying Through Space 
The sculpture also consists of an LED matrix that’s displaying a “shaping-shifting ship flying through space”. Because there are LED drivers that are still work in progress for Daisy, Eirik used Arduino Nano and FastLED library for the LED matrix. By connecting Daisy’s DAC outputs to Arduino’s analog inputs, the pattern and brightness are mapped to the filter and envelope of the music.
Beauty in Process 
The documentation video for this project is as lovely as the project itself.
It is always a joy to watch the process of projects being put together. We can all learn neat tips along the way, such as the threaded inserts that was used. They can fuse into the plastic when they’re heated up a soldering iron.
These things are super useful! There are also inserts like this that you can hammer into 3D printed plastics. And there are also inserts for woods which are very useful (I really need to write a guide on McMaster-Carr soon).
Eirik has many projects that are documented on his website, YouTube channel, and Instagram account.
He stated that he is looking forward to building more projects with the Daisy in the future. We are excited to see what he will build next!