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evice helps deaf musicians stay on beat
For their senior project last fall, Matt Marquette and his fellow student engineers set out to solve an unusual problem: How do you teach musical rhythms to a child who cannot hear?
Most children learn musical time to the steady tock-tock of the metronome, a fine tool for the hearing. The six Marquette University students would spend their senior year inventing a metronome that worked silently, delivering rhythm through another sense.
Unlike many of the engineering projects at Marquette, this one was not the idea of a professor, or a local company. The idea came from Cecil Austin, who teaches hand drumming to children at the Center for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing in West Allis, and who has worked with the center's drum ensemble, "probably the only ensemble of its kind in the world," he said.
In an effort to teach rhythm to the children, Austin had developed a way of using state names to suggest a beat. Single-syllable Maine was a quarter note. Double-syllable U-tah was a pair of eighth notes. Mi-ssi-ssi-ppi was four sixteenth notes. But a child's eyes cannot track words as easily they can musical notes. Also, the system made more sense to those who were hard of hearing than it did to those who were deaf; they hear Maine or Mi-ssi-ssi-ppi in their heads.
Nor was the system ideal for the children when they practiced by themselves. How would they know if they played a rhythm correctly?
Austin needed a new kind of metronome. He mentioned his idea to an engineer he'd worked with before, who then passed it on to Matt Marquette
"There's something gratifying about solving problems, especially when the problem you solve is going to help people," said Marquette, a quiet, bespectacled 21-year-old whose childhood interests in Legos and mathematics had led him to engineering.
The senior project is a rite of passage for the university's engineering students, a chance to put what they've learned into practice. They have less than nine months to turn an idea into a prototype, a process that takes several years at many companies.
"This is what we were going to be doing in the real world," said Katie Holterman, then a 22-year-old studying electrical engineering.
She was one of the five classmates Matt Marquette assembled to work on the project. The others were Emily Stockhausen, Brandon Zingsheim, Brad Fessenbecker and Chris Jablonowski.
Although the engineers had no experience working with the deaf and hard of hearing, several came from musical backgrounds. Holterman sang in the Homestead High School choir in Mequon, and her mother was a piano teacher. Zingsheim played piano and composed music. Marquette had played drums and other percussion instruments in bands since fifth grade and performed with the university concert band.
George Corliss, a professor of electrical and computer engineering, had advised groups of students for the past three years. He knew that some projects call for a leap of imagination, while others show the everyday applications of engineering.
The students split neatly into two areas of expertise. Jablonowski, Fessenbecker and Holterman knew electronic hardware and focused on the circuit board.
Zingsheim, Stockhausen and Marquette knew software and worked on the programs for the LCD screen and the microcontroller, a sort of mini-computer that reads sensors and does calculations.
The students spent much of the first semester brainstorming on durability, cost and manufacturing. They met with the children to learn their needs.
Good vibrations
Would it make more sense to design something that would tell students how they were playing through visual feedback, or perhaps something tactile, a vibration, for example?
When they drum, deaf children feel the vibrations rumble through the wood floors and into their feet, said Deb Kravit, a program director at the Center for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. The ability to feel the drumbeat is significant, she said, because "one of the first things parents (of deaf children) grieve is that their child won't be able to enjoy music.
"That's a myth. Deaf children can appreciate music just like their parents."
Each time the center's Children of the Sun Drum Troupe performs in public, it helps dispel the myth, she said.
Visits to the center helped the engineering students grasp the importance of what they were making for their senior project. They were able to see the children who would use their device, said Holterman, "which was very, very cool."
The students designed a metronome-like device that would include a microphone to capture the sound of the drumming, a computer program to analyze that sound and a screen so students could see the result of that analysis. The students decided to call their product the Silent Rhythm Teacher.
Despite the technology at their disposal, they had practical concerns.
For one thing, they had to find a box or case in which to house the Silent Rhythm Teacher's screen, electronics and circuit board. The students eventually settled on a black box somewhat larger than a videotape and outfitted it with a blue screen that would display the musical notes.
The students devised a computer program so children could input a specific beat, and the rhythm teacher would place a checkmark beneath each note they played correctly and an X beneath each one they misplayed. Performers could tell by the placement of the X if they had played a beat too early or too late.
Problems and solutions
The engineers spent many weekends in the bio-computing lab on the third floor of the engineering building.
Some nights in early February, Zingsheim lay in bed worrying whether the technology they were using would do exactly what they were asking of it. Would their LCD screen tell the children in real time if they'd made a mistake, or played a rhythm correctly?
Marquette, who liked to solve problems, found he had another. The microcontroller and LCD display chip weren't communicating. After running a series of tests, the team changed some of the hardware, which in turn required Marquette to rewrite some of his code.
Before the students made their final presentation, they took the device to the Center for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing and had children try it and recommend improvements.
In May, they presented their project to the rest of the engineering class, explaining how they developed their device and giving a live demonstration as Zingsheim controlled the Silent Rhythm Teacher and Marquette played a drum. The device worked.
The team's final grade: A.
Unlike other projects, however, the rhythm teacher's story may not have ended with the grade.
Holterman is still at Marquette pursuing a master's degree and working on a second copy of the prototype. She hopes the students will receive a patent for their device and then find a financial backer to help bring it to market.
In the meantime, her classmates have moved on. Zingsheim is now developing software for the medical technology firm Medtronic. Fessenbecker now works as a plant engineer at We Energies. Stockhausen is a patent engineer at Michael Best & Friedrich. Jablonowski is a design engineer at GE Healthcare.
As for Marquette, he is developing software for Caterpillar, which makes construction and mining equipment, the kind of vehicles children imagine when they pour out a box of Legos and begin to build.
evice helps deaf musicians stay on beatFor their senior project last fall, Matt Marquette and his fellow student engineers set out to solve an unusual problem: How do you teach musical rhythms to a child who cannot hear?
Most children learn musical time to the steady tock-tock of the metronome, a fine tool for the hearing. The six Marquette University students would spend their senior year inventing a metronome that worked silently, delivering rhythm through another sense.
Unlike many of the engineering projects at Marquette, this one was not the idea of a professor, or a local company. The idea came from Cecil Austin, who teaches hand drumming to children at the Center for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing in West Allis, and who has worked with the center's drum ensemble, "probably the only ensemble of its kind in the world," he said.
In an effort to teach rhythm to the children, Austin had developed a way of using state names to suggest a beat. Single-syllable Maine was a quarter note. Double-syllable U-tah was a pair of eighth notes. Mi-ssi-ssi-ppi was four sixteenth notes. But a child's eyes cannot track words as easily they can musical notes. Also, the system made more sense to those who were hard of hearing than it did to those who were deaf; they hear Maine or Mi-ssi-ssi-ppi in their heads.
Nor was the system ideal for the children when they practiced by themselves. How would they know if they played a rhythm correctly?
Austin needed a new kind of metronome. He mentioned his idea to an engineer he'd worked with before, who then passed it on to Matt Marquette
"There's something gratifying about solving problems, especially when the problem you solve is going to help people," said Marquette, a quiet, bespectacled 21-year-old whose childhood interests in Legos and mathematics had led him to engineering.
The senior project is a rite of passage for the university's engineering students, a chance to put what they've learned into practice. They have less than nine months to turn an idea into a prototype, a process that takes several years at many companies.
"This is what we were going to be doing in the real world," said Katie Holterman, then a 22-year-old studying electrical engineering.
She was one of the five classmates Matt Marquette assembled to work on the project. The others were Emily Stockhausen, Brandon Zingsheim, Brad Fessenbecker and Chris Jablonowski.
Although the engineers had no experience working with the deaf and hard of hearing, several came from musical backgrounds. Holterman sang in the Homestead High School choir in Mequon, and her mother was a piano teacher. Zingsheim played piano and composed music. Marquette had played drums and other percussion instruments in bands since fifth grade and performed with the university concert band.
George Corliss, a professor of electrical and computer engineering, had advised groups of students for the past three years. He knew that some projects call for a leap of imagination, while others show the everyday applications of engineering.
The students split neatly into two areas of expertise. Jablonowski, Fessenbecker and Holterman knew electronic hardware and focused on the circuit board.
Zingsheim, Stockhausen and Marquette knew software and worked on the programs for the LCD screen and the microcontroller, a sort of mini-computer that reads sensors and does calculations.
The students spent much of the first semester brainstorming on durability, cost and manufacturing. They met with the children to learn their needs.
Good vibrations
Would it make more sense to design something that would tell students how they were playing through visual feedback, or perhaps something tactile, a vibration, for example?
When they drum, deaf children feel the vibrations rumble through the wood floors and into their feet, said Deb Kravit, a program director at the Center for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. The ability to feel the drumbeat is significant, she said, because "one of the first things parents (of deaf children) grieve is that their child won't be able to enjoy music.
"That's a myth. Deaf children can appreciate music just like their parents."
Each time the center's Children of the Sun Drum Troupe performs in public, it helps dispel the myth, she said.
Visits to the center helped the engineering students grasp the importance of what they were making for their senior project. They were able to see the children who would use their device, said Holterman, "which was very, very cool."
The students designed a metronome-like device that would include a microphone to capture the sound of the drumming, a computer program to analyze that sound and a screen so students could see the result of that analysis. The students decided to call their product the Silent Rhythm Teacher.
Despite the technology at their disposal, they had practical concerns.
For one thing, they had to find a box or case in which to house the Silent Rhythm Teacher's screen, electronics and circuit board. The students eventually settled on a black box somewhat larger than a videotape and outfitted it with a blue screen that would display the musical notes.
The students devised a computer program so children could input a specific beat, and the rhythm teacher would place a checkmark beneath each note they played correctly and an X beneath each one they misplayed. Performers could tell by the placement of the X if they had played a beat too early or too late.
Problems and solutions
The engineers spent many weekends in the bio-computing lab on the third floor of the engineering building.
Some nights in early February, Zingsheim lay in bed worrying whether the technology they were using would do exactly what they were asking of it. Would their LCD screen tell the children in real time if they'd made a mistake, or played a rhythm correctly?
Marquette, who liked to solve problems, found he had another. The microcontroller and LCD display chip weren't communicating. After running a series of tests, the team changed some of the hardware, which in turn required Marquette to rewrite some of his code.
Before the students made their final presentation, they took the device to the Center for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing and had children try it and recommend improvements.
In May, they presented their project to the rest of the engineering class, explaining how they developed their device and giving a live demonstration as Zingsheim controlled the Silent Rhythm Teacher and Marquette played a drum. The device worked.
The team's final grade: A.
Unlike other projects, however, the rhythm teacher's story may not have ended with the grade.
Holterman is still at Marquette pursuing a master's degree and working on a second copy of the prototype. She hopes the students will receive a patent for their device and then find a financial backer to help bring it to market.
In the meantime, her classmates have moved on. Zingsheim is now developing software for the medical technology firm Medtronic. Fessenbecker now works as a plant engineer at We Energies. Stockhausen is a patent engineer at Michael Best & Friedrich. Jablonowski is a design engineer at GE Healthcare.
As for Marquette, he is developing software for Caterpillar, which makes construction and mining equipment, the kind of vehicles children imagine when they pour out a box of Legos and begin to build.