So I’ve started my 6-week internship with Convolve Inc. along with 4 of my friends. It’s essentially a mechanical engineering firm; they do a lot of computer and hard drive work. Anyways, our project will be to build an automated guitar hero player. Yes, I know it’s been done before, but our goal is to do it a bit differently. Most of the existing models use note charts, and pre-program the guitar for specific songs. Ours will be entirely real time, and will adapt to any song you throw at it automatically. The only calibration necessary will be to set the distance between the sensor bar and where the notes get hit at the bottom of the screen. This will allow us the use it on any television, with any song. The sensor bar will consist of photodiodes that can detect changes in light. Using the signals generated by these photodiodes and amplified by opamp circuits, we will hopefully be able to detect signals, and send them to a microprocessor in the guitar where they will be processed, and button presses will be done by connecting two contacts with a solid state relay. Upon completion, we will post source code, schematics, and videos for all who want to give it a shot.