Savannah, GA

Emma Wu
TANGIBLE INTERACTION · IXDS 734

Stack three blocks. Start a band.

SCROLL

Bandy turns music into building blocks. Stack a hat, a face and an outfit to create a band member, and every combination sounds different. Match your band as you wish.

Course
IXDS 734 · SCAD · Spring 2026
Team
Yutong Gao, Minwei Wu, Qiling Chen
Built with
ESP32 · pogo pins · Arduino IDE · Processing · laser cutting
Category
Tangible interaction · Toy design
Six Bandy band members lined up in front of the farm stage A band member standing on the Bandy stage The full Bandy stage with a band lined up

My role

One of three designers, from the block system and character design to the physical stage, the electronics and the vision film.

  • Concept & interaction
  • Character & block design
  • Physical prototyping
  • Electronics & code
  • Vision film
01

Vision film

Match your band as you wish.

02

Starting point

Music is on offer. Children aren’t playing it.

US schoolsSource: Arts Education Data Project
0%
have music class
0%
take part
Parents of under-fivesSource: Youth Music, 2024
0%
say music builds skills
0%
think school gives enough

The gap isn’t access. It’s a way in that a three-year-old can simply pick up.

  1. Touch, don’t read

    Every musical choice is a block you can hold.

  2. Every combination works

    Mistakes become surprises.

  3. Characters, not controls

    A face reads as a mood before it reads as a rhythm.

  4. Early white concept model: three plain cubes stacked on a gridded baseEarly form study
03

How to play

Stack a member. Place it on the grid. Pick a scene.

  1. ↓
    Stack = one memberThree blocks make a character: hat, face and outfit.
  2. →
    Columns = timeThe base reads left to right, one column after another, then loops.
  3. ↕
    Rows = pitchBack row plays high, front row low. Same column, same moment.
  4. ▣
    Scene board = genreThe board behind the base sets the style the band plays in.
04

Build a band member

Hat · sound effect
Face · rhythm
Outfit · instrument

It remixes itself. Tap a block, or pick one below.

Hats
Faces
Outfits

216possible band members from 18 blocks

05

Play the band

Your turn: put a band on the board.

Grid from above
Scene boards
Turn your sound on

Every note is made live in your browser. Speakers or headphones work best.

Now playing

Left to right is time: the six columns play in turn and loop. Members in the same column play together. Rows are pitch: the back row plays high, the front row low. Swap a block: drag one from the tray onto a member, or tap a block, then a new one. Move a member: drag it to another spot. Back row hidden? Point at a back member, or use the grid map above the scene boards.

06

Scene boards

Same band, a different genre.

The board behind the band sets the genre. An NFC tag inside it tells the base which scene is in, and the same piano player sounds completely different at a jazz club than on a rock stage. Our prototype has the country board; try the others in the band above.

The real country board: a painted, layered farm behind the base The laser-cut base with its grid of slots

The real prototype: a laser-cut base with tenon-and-mortise joints and a hand-painted, layered country board.

07

How it works

Look inside.

A resistor in every block

Each block hides a resistor with its own value. One leg goes to a shared ground, the other to a corner pin that maps to its layer: pin 32 for the instrument, 33 for the effect, 34 for the rhythm.

Pogo pins

Spring-loaded pins on the top and bottom faces are wired through, so three blocks are read at once just by stacking.

Inside the base

The ESP32 reads the three voltages, matches them to calibrated ranges and sends the combo, like “bass,laughing,elf”, to Processing, which loops the right sound. In our MVP the laptop plays the sound; the speaker and NFC reader belong to the final design.

Scene board

An NFC tag in each board tells the base which genre is in, so it can set the base rhythm and melody the band plays over.

Hover over the blocks, the base or the board to look inside. Left alone, it walks you through.

A working MVP

Before painting anything, we proved the core loop: stack blocks on the breadboard rig, and the laptop recognises them and plays the matching sound in real time, with a debounce so a wobbly contact doesn’t cut the music.

Next project

Fitfido

View case study