INTRODUCTION

HIGH LEVEL DESIGN

PROGRAM/HARDWARE DESIGN

RESULTS

CONCLUSION

APPENDIX A: CODE

APPENDIX B: SCHEMATICS

APPENDIX C: PARTS LISTING

APPENDIX D: TASKS

REFERENCE

Carole-Jean Wu

Yang Ching Chang

Results

Speed

Our keyboard mania plays notes hit by the user through the TV’s audio output and displays its correctness immediately on the TV screen. There is no detectable delay between input from the computer keyboard and audio/video output to the TV. We also ensure a fully concurrent interaction between the HyperTerminal on the PC and drawing on the TV screen. It is critical because frame updates, sound generation, and user input from the computer keyboard are all interrupt-based. With careful implementation using semaphores, we avoid waiting/halting issues and, as a result, there is no I/O delay at all. In addition, we also have to ensure arithmetic calculations and drawing on the TV screen are completely done within one frame time by distributing tasks to different lines. Therefore, there is no visual artifact on the TV screen.

 

 

Accuracy

We measured the keyboard mania’s audio output using an oscilloscope and compared the measured frequency with the expected frequency in the table below. The error is within 1% which is insignificant to human hearing. Therefore, we can conclude the error in frequency is acceptable.

In regards to our keyboard mania’s video output, we were able to display and update every frame with no visual glitches on the TV screen.

How We Enforced Safety in the Design

There is no major safety consideration in regard to our keyboard mania’s implementation; however users have to be careful with volts power supply and outside radio frequency transmission which may cause sound distortions and noise.

 

Interference with Other People’s Designs

There is no direct interference with other people’s design from this year or past years.

 

Usability of our Project

Our keyboard mania provides piano learners to practice elementary piano scores using a computer keyboard. Users can easily obtain hardware from electronic stores with cheap price, follow the instruction to build up simple circuits on a breadboard, connect audio and video output to a TV, then download the software from our website to the STK500 development board, and start to practice the pre-coded music scores. In addition, our keyboard mania is user friendly interfaced. It is simple and easy to start playing a piano score. Users can learn on their own without the presence of a piano teacher which saves big money on piano lessons and also piano itself.