Digital Piano for Interactive Learning; Gamification in Musical Education 6 views

The way engineers design musical tools to be used is not always the way people actually interact with them; the difference between intended and real-world usage highlights a key gap in musical education. My capstone project focused on a rhythm-gamified digital piano that aimed to lower the barrier to entry associated with learning an instrument, while my research paper focuses on the benefits and drawbacks to using gamified tools to aid music education. Our gamified piano took inspiration from the approachability of games like Guitar Hero and Piano Tiles and combined it with the tactile experience of a piano by using a 3D-printed keyboard with follow LEDs that indicate both notes and timing. The goal was to help users build the muscle memory necessary for playing piano before introducing sheet music. Overall, the follow-light system was successful, though there is still room for improvement in tactile and audio feedback. Because we had a small team, we each took ownership of different parts of the full system. While this was efficient during the design phase, it made integration more challenging, since not all issues were caught early. Combining the different subsystems exposed weaknesses in each part of the system, which led to more troubleshooting than initially expected. In addition, mechanical constraints such as tolerancing and tension were difficult to fully simulate, so some issues only became apparent during full-system testing. My STS research centered around the Scripts and User Configuration framework to analyze how gamifying the process of learning a musical instrument changes the script for how students perceive and interact with their instruments. This framework highlights how designers configure users through the structure of the system, shaping how they are expected to interact with it in practice. My research was focused around how turning learning into a game affects motivation, as well as which design approaches were more or less successful and why. The effectiveness of gamification is not black-and-white, but instead depends heavily on how carefully the system is designed. Gamification works when the game-like elements actually add to the learning experience, rather than just being there as a gimmick.

BS (Bachelor of Science)

Gamification; Music Education; Self-Determination Theory; Intrinsic Motivation; Digital Piano

School of Engineering and Applied Science Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering Technical Advisor: Michael Momot STS Advisor: Travis Elliott Technical Team Members: Adam Lewis, Bethany Gaubatz, Dan O’Connor

English

2026-05-08