(^64) The Official Raspberry Pi Projects Book raspberrypi.org/magpi
Arcade buttons connected
to GPIO pins are used to
select chords, and choose
a clean or dirty sound
Stickers designed and printed
in-house represent the
breweries and bands taking
part in the Boulevardia event
16-gauge galvanised strings
connect to a Raspberry
Pi via a Bare Conductive
capacitive touch board
Projects SHOWCASE
Asked to create ‘something amazing’ for the entrance of Boulevardia,
a two-day music festival, the team at Dimensional Innovations didn’t disappoint
The build took
five weeks
in total
The body is
constructed
using layers
of MDF
Stickers were
printed on
3M Controltac
It uses HDMI
for sound
Watch the build
process at
magpi.cc/
2udZo0z
Quick
Facts
THE PLAYABLE 12-FOOT
ELECTRIC GUITAR
CHRIS RIEBSCHLAGER
Chris Riebschlager works as Lead
Software Developer at Dimensional
Innovations, Kansas City, USA.
magpi.cc/2u887BS
oulevardia is Kansas
City’s two-day music,
food and beer event,
drawing crowds to the historic
Stockyards District. When tasked
with making something ‘amazing’
to be situated just inside the
entrance to the event, the team
at design firm Dimensional
Innovations “wanted to create
something iconic, interactive,
and engaging.”
Although the idea of a 12 ft
(3.6 m) tall electric guitar wasn’t
the first concept to grace their
ideas board, it was the one that
stuck. And soon afterwards,
the team got to work designing
both the internal electronics and
external aesthetic of the build.
“Honestly, I didn’t know if we
would be able to make this happen,”
explains Chris Riebschlager, Lead
Software Developer at Dimensional
Innovations, “but I was smitten with
the idea, so I pitched it to the team.”
Once the idea was green-lighted,
Chris finally had an excuse to use
the Bare Conductive capacitive
touch board he’d been coveting
as a maker, and they got to work
on a prototype.
B
Prototyping
The plan was to use 16-gauge
galvanised wire as the conductive
material connected to the board,
allowing the team to assign a WAV
sound file to each wire. ‘Strum’ a
wire and the board would register
the connection and task the
Raspberry Pi with playing back
a specific note. A simple enough
idea, and one we’ve seen countless
times using fruit and tin foil – but
for a 12-foot guitar, there was a
little more work to be done.
Chris originally attempted to
source his guitar note WAV files
The final build was hugely successful, flooding
social media accounts during the two-day event