You’ve seen films and TV reveals with Geiger counters: handheld gadgets that click on after they detect radiation — the quicker the clicks, the stronger the radiation. These clicks are literally the results of inert fuel briefly made conductive by bursts of power launched by ionizing radiation particles coming into the sealed Geiger–Müller tube. YouTuber The Edison Union had the intelligent concept to make use of these clicks as triggers for generative music and turned to Arduino to make it occur.

That is half of a bigger challenge referred to as The Cherenkov Impact, which seeks to discover Chilly Battle-era anxieties associated to nuclear energy and nuclear weapons. The Cherenkov Impact does that by means of a mix of efficiency artwork and generative music. And what higher option to generate that music than with radiation?

On this case, that radiation comes from Strontium-90 and Polonium-210. Whereas these are much less harmful to deal with than many different radioactive supplies, they nonetheless aren’t secure and also you shouldn’t replicate this challenge when you don’t know the correct procedures.

The Edison Union makes use of Ableton Dwell to supply the music for The Cherenkov Impact, however wanted “seeds” for the generative processes that flip into audible notes. These seeds come from 5 Geiger counter modules that connect with an Arduino GIGA R1 WiFi board by means of a Seeed Studio Grove Protect. The Arduino sketch counts radioactive pulses, then passes that information on to a Processing sketch that performs the generative music capabilities. The latter is the place The Edison Union is ready to get artistic relating to the sound produced. Lastly, Processing sends notes to Ableton Dwell to synthesize.

Now when The Edison Union strikes Strontium-90 or Polonium-210 across the array of Geiger counters, the gadget will generate and play music based mostly on the radiation it receives.