The Hummellaphone: An Electromagnetically Actuated Instrument and Open-Source Toolkit

This paper presents the Hummellaphone, a highly-reconfigurable, open-source, electromagnetically actuated instrument being developed for research in engineering learning, haptics, and human-computer interaction (HCI). The reconfigurable performance interface promotes experimentation with gestural control and mapping. Haptic feedback reintroduces the tangible bilateral communication between performer and instrument that is present in many acoustic and electro-acoustic instruments but missing in most digital musical instruments. The overall aim of the project is to create an open-source, accessible toolkit for facilitating the development of and research with electromagnetically actuated musical instruments. This paper describes the hardware and design of the musical instrument and control interface as well as example research applications.