Smart Box: making any musical instrument smart

Purpose and goal

The project aimed at developing and validating a prototype for the Smart Box, a groundbreaking Internet of Things device that makes any musical instrument smart. Smart Box responds to musicians’ needs of enhanced ways of musical expression and interactions with music and their audience. It caters to such needs by bridging the gap between any musical instrument and the digital/connected world. With one single and portable device musicians are able to access sound effects allowing them to boost the expressivity of their performances, and to record and share them online in HD

Expected results and effects

The main result of the project consists of a prototype for the Smart Box, with a limited set of working functionalities, which was tested at both technical performance level and user experience level. Another result consists of a defined design for a more advanced prototype with more features that will be considered for the phase of industrialization of the product. The project activities have resulted in new knowledge that will be protected thanks to a patent application about a low-latency wireless communication system and method, which will be finalized in upcoming weeks.

Planned approach and implementation

In the proposal the project activities were planned for a timeframe of 7 months but the team managed to accomplish them in the timeframe of 6 months. All planned activities were carried out without any further change to what was described in the proposal. The activities planned to achieve the project goals were based on a user-centered design approach and structured in 4 work packages (WPs): WP1) Requirement Analysis [Months 1-2]; WP2) Design [Months 2-3]; WP3) Prototype Development [Months 4-5]; WP4) Prototype Evaluation [Month 6]