Inspiring Students, One Community at a Time by WaveMakers: DIY Coding + Theremin Workshops

“The early bird gets the worm” is an adage that has persisted across centuries for a reason. At WaveMakers, we seek to inspire middle and high school “early birds” to grow a passion for STEM through our DIY Theremin + Coding Workshops. Founded by a team of high schoolers in their local community, WaveMakers hosts workshops at libraries and other community hubs where participants with little to no coding knowledge can learn how to breadboard, write code to interface with an ultrasonic distance sensor, and generate their own funky pieces of music in under 2 hours. In this article, we present an overview of how WaveMakers made this possible, with the goal of helping others engage students in STEM in their own community.

The first thing that Raunak Singh, WaveMakers Founder and CEO, thought of when designing this workshop was “How can we ‘make making’ engaging for everyone?” Instead of doing the traditional beginner projects, Singh wanted to forge a unique approach with which students would learn electronics in a new and interesting way… through music. Through the medium of music, students can connect how the concepts they learn and implement in the circuit and code tie together to produce something tangible: sound.

One of the best instruments for workshop participants to make this interdisciplinary connection between technology and music is a theremin. Invented in 1920 by a Russian physicist and featured in shows like “The Flintstones” and “Batman,” the theremin is an electronic instrument that musicians can play without contact, merely by moving their hands at varying distances from antennas to control either pitch or volume. While a real theremin uses electromagnetic fields to “sense” the musician’s hands, the theremin we designed for educational purposes uses an HC-SR04 Ultrasonic Distance sensor, popular in the hobbyist community.

Once we decided on how we would make the theremin, it was time to prepare for the workshop. First, we attained parts in bulk with the help of sponsors like Hackster.io. Next, while initially we tested the code we wrote in Microsoft MakeCode, we also tested it in real life, building the circuit with a micro:bit and a distance sensor. Then, we began to develop our curriculum. We created a slideshow that walked students through basic electronics and programming concepts like current vs. voltage, the components on a micro:bit, how an ultrasonic distance sensor works, etc., and Singh created a helpful, step-by-step guided video for students to follow along with as they made the circuit. If you would like to start this in your own community, please reach out at wavemakers.tech/contact, and we will be happy to provide the slideshow, guided circuit design video, and any other resources.

After a few more steps, we were ready for the workshop! On the day of the workshop, we arrived early to coordinate the on-site setup. We started the workshop by showing attendees a demo video of the DIY theremin they would make. Then, we went through the first part of the slides, going over key electronics and breadboarding concepts. As we went along, we created mini-exercises on the whiteboard and cold-called participants up to solve the exercise, fostering problem-solving skills and serving as a good check that they were grasping the content. Once we had explained the fundamentals, we gave participants the supplies in custom-made kits we had packed earlier, and taught them how to follow the schematic to breadboard the circuit in real life with the support of our guided circuit design video. Pro Tip: Before participants begin breadboarding, make sure they have their breadboard and components aligned the right way; it makes it a lot easier if the pin numbers on the breadboard you tell them match up with where they should place the component as per the schematic.

Once they had breadboarded the circuit, Thomas Raskin, WaveMakers Operations Director, walked participants through the code and helped participants recreate it so they could experiment and make music! While by no means was the music a masterpiece, the theremin is a notoriously difficult instrument to play that so it was amazing that using songs and note guides that Leo, WaveMakers Program Director, had created before the session students were able to play songs like Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and Mary Had a Little Lamb.

The experience was a highly rewarding one, as it was amazing to see kids tinker with and develop a passion for electronics and coding, and see their DIY theremin come to life with music. By the end of the session, the air in the room was electrifying as attendees developed a newfound confidence that they could build, program, and iterate until their DIY theremin worked, learning key STEM foundations through the process. It was especially gratifying to hear one student say, “Wow, I didn’t know I could do this!” as they got their theremin to work. However, this workshop is just the beginning, as we ignited a passion for STEM that will outlast the workshop itself.

Thanks to Hackster.io and Jinger Zeng, Contest Manager @ Hackster.io, for sponsoring this event. Participants loved gaining mementos of the awesome WaveMakers experience that inspired the start of their journey in STEM.