My first idea was ‘Trashcan Keeper’ but I had to change the subject because:
1. Sound localization algorithm is too difficult to understand and implement in Arduino board in a few weeks
2. ATmega328 MCU, which is a MCU in Arduino, supports only 1 ADC. I have no idea about connecting and synchronizing multiple Arduino boards.
So, here’s my new final project proposal: Dancing Toy!
It is certain that humans have some sort of genes that enable us to dance along with music and beats. There is no reason toys can’t have those genes. In Minim sound library for Processing, there’re functions detect beats in the sampled data and detected beats are roughly categorized into 3 patterns: Kick, Snare and Hat. My idea is to map each pattern to one of 3 axis of toy’s base to make a dancing toy…
However, right after I wrote this post, I searched and found a toy that reads beats and dances excellently. (This is different from sound-activated toys)
Even though a dancing toy already exists, dance (or any musical interpretation) is a creative and expressive outlet that encompasses a huge range of possibilities. You can certainly take this as your concept, and put your own stamp on the “dancing.”
Think about what your “robot” looks like – is it humanoid? Abstract like a lava lamp?
Since you have already identified a sound library, you can go ahead and just start testing the beat detection with a motor or servo output, and playing with the quality of the motion. What kinds of armature or mechanical parts can you attach to the motor to give different motions (think about hinges, different types of puppets). Focus on the expressive and creative aspects of the output, not just the functional implementation.