Streetbeats

Musical spinning tops

Ron van der Ouweland of the Dutch company Rhonner Design is currently working on an experiment named Streetbeats. Creative Learning Lab supports this experiment and is guiding Ron in the development of Streetbeats, making it into an exciting product for young children.

Streetbeats combines one of the oldest toys in the world, the spinning top, with new technology. It lets children playfully discover the dynamics and layers that hide within sounds and music.

By connecting the spinning tops to a laptop in a wireless manner, it is possible to attach a specific music sample to each spinning top that can be played off in a loop as long as the spinning top is spinning. If a second spinning top is activated at the right time, a personal composition starts to form that can be expanded to any size. By working together a musical orchestra can be brought into existence. See the video for more of this.

Ron: “What I hope Streetbeats will achieve is lowering the threshold to experiment with music, instead of just listening to it. And that it will eventually inspire children  to play an instrument and in doing so become active in the creation of the non-existent.“

The plan is to develop Streetbeats further in cooperation with the Creative Learning lab. There will be more dynamic traits of the spinning tops connected to related musical variables.
In the next prototype the spinning speed will be attached to volume, to make it possible to bring up the bass spinning top with a whip entirely. When two spinning tops make physical contact, the slowest spinning one will be filtered out of the composition with a ‘ brake-effect’  well known amongst DJ’s. This will enable the kids to test their skill against eachother in a spinning-top battle,

Another idea is to make the application mobile by letting mobile phones  function as software-host and audio-output. This way, a headset will enable to practice everywhere, while speakers can be used to play the music at any time.