What went well

• I found the beater struck the gong in an effective enough manner to produce a sound of dynamic and timbral quality that replicates the tones produced in performance. It was challenging to capture this on film due to a number of different factors which I will list under “things to improve”, the video is the best take I could record.
• The prototyping process has raised more questions which hadn’t come to mind yet, namely; how to incorporate the sensor into the final design, how to stop the gongs from moving even fractionally because of the small striking distance the solenoid and beater are limited to.

Things to improve

• Slight tweaks to the design of the solenoid and beater mechanism is required, sometimes the part that attaches to the beater becomes caught on the part that houses the solenoid. This part also doesn’t attach to the solenoid correctly because the screw holes don’t align with the screw holes on the solenoid already.
• The code holds its position when triggered which acts to dampen the gong after being striked. I will need to alter the code so that once the gong has been struck the beater returns to its original position.