Building music with Lego bricks and Raspberry Pi

TL;DR

This paper presents a modular, Lego-based musical system controlled by Raspberry Pi, enabling intuitive music creation and learning through customizable physical components and software algorithms.

Contribution

It introduces a novel, accessible approach to music making using Lego bricks and Raspberry Pi, combining hardware and software for educational and creative purposes.

Findings

System is versatile for different musical styles

Easy to use for children and adults

Supports music learning and creativity

Abstract

In this paper, a system to build music in an intuitive and accessible way, with Lego bricks, is presented. The system makes use of the new powerful and cheap possibilities that technology offers for making old things in a new way. The Raspberry Pi is used to control the system and run the necessary algorithms, customized Lego bricks are used for building melodies, custom electronic designs, software pieces and 3D printed parts complete the items employed. The system designed is modular, it allows creating melodies with chords and percussion or just melodies or perform as a beatbox or a melody box. The main interaction with the system is made using Lego-type building blocks. Tests have demonstrated its versatility and ease of use, as well as its usefulness in music learning for both children and adults.