Hello, my name is Stephen Hoeprich and welcome to the website for my Senior Capstone Design Project in Electrical Engineering.
Students of conducting rarely are afforded the opportunity to work with an ensemble. The goal of this project is to give these students as much feedback as possible after such an opportunity and to give them a valuable tool for their own practice. The system will take in the conductor’s movements as an input and display the live tempo they are conducting at that moment as an output. The system will consist of two parts: a wristband-based movement sensor and an app, with the movement sensor communicating wirelessly to the app via Bluetooth. The system is designed to be affordable, compact, and able to measure tempo effectively. It can effectively detect tempos ranging from 40-200 bpm with an accuracy of +/- 10 bpm. Testing of the prototype involved using it in multiple rehearsals with different conductors and conducting styles and improving its function based on the feedback given from each conductor. A final product, meeting all design requirements and giving valuable feedback to the user, was completed and presented on March 5, 2016.
Screenshot of the app showing a tempo of 62 BPM
Image of the movement sensor
A quick video overview of the system can be found here.
More information and an in-depth description can be found in the Final Design Report and the Final Presentation Slides.