TinkerKit… uh… actually, just my project

Well, I had intended to do the TinkerKit module-searching exercise.

Then I realized all I really need is an Arduino, an 8-ohm speaker, a 100-ohm resistor, and a hook-up wire. All these are listed on Arduino’s tutorial for tone.

Well, that ruins my need for TinkerKit mostly, doesn’t it.

Aside from that, my project idea is remaining the same: get the Arduino to play music via commands from the Emotiv headset.

This requires the aforementioned hardware, the Emotiv EPOC headset, a USB cable, and some programming. Okay, a lot of programming.

I’m thinking of taking a look at Ben Farahmand’s tutorial for using the Emotiv headset with Processing and the Arduino.

I’m guessing this is going to use a serial I/O, with the Emotiv commands going through Processing and into the Arduino. In the event I’m off, it may be an Emotiv to Python to Processing to Arduino communication. A lot more than I’d like, but still doable.

I’m pondering if there’s a way to directly attach C libraries to Arduino, as if there is, Emokit provides a C library in addition to their Python library.

So my steps likely would be the following:

1. Set up the Arduino to play tones.
2. Create an I/O functionality for the Arduino. Input = computer commands. Output = tones.
3. Use Processing +/ Python to translate the data received from the headset into meaningful commands that will be sent to the Arduino.

It appears deceptively simple, but acquiring the required hardware and libraries makes this quite the task.

But this is still my plan, and what I want to do. And getting the Arduino set up is half the battle.