At the Innovation Center of St. Vrain Valley Schools, music doesn’t only begin with notes on a page or traditional instruments; it can also start with wires, code, and imagination.
On a recent morning, students in the Intro to Music Innovation class gathered around tables scattered with Arduino Leonardo microcontrollers, colorful wires, sensors, and hand-built prototypes for a culminating feedback session. The assignment: build and design their own musical instruments.
Over the past six classes, using a combination of Arduino hardware and Logic Pro software, students transformed their creations into MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) controllers capable of producing and manipulating sound digitally. Their projects were rooted in the design thinking process, so each instrument needed to address a specific challenge they identified.
From concept to prototype, students developed their instruments, using tools like Gemini to help write and troubleshoot their Arduino code. This use of AI allowed students to focus on rapid prototyping without needing a coding prerequisite. The result was a range of inventive solutions to real musical challenges, inspired by students’ existing musical frameworks and interests.
At one station, Longmont High freshmen Clara Lehmer and Mason Morrow demonstrated an equalizer controlled by an ultrasonic sensor, allowing them to shape sound with the movement of their hands—similar to a theremin. At another, a series of buttons mapped to musical notes could shift between keys and chords, designed to make music fundamentals more accessible for beginners, including older adults or individuals with physical limitations.
For Alexis Bonilla, a sophomore from Skyline High School, the project unlocked new ways of thinking about music. “It felt like it opened a lot of creative possibilities on a small scale,” he said.
Other projects were born directly from personal experience. Tristan Jones and Nove Cleveland, both bass players, designed a small keyboard-style instrument that lets them practice sight-reading and learning melodies by ear without carrying a full-sized bass. Nearby, Spencer Gutierrez and Nayeli Ceja, both from Frederick High School, developed an intuitive controller to solve a problem they’ve faced in live performance. Spencer, who plays in a pit orchestra, shared that it can be difficult to adjust computer instrument settings quickly during a show. Their solution: a simplified control system designed for speed and ease.
“It’s empowering to build something that is customized for exactly what you need,” Spencer said.
The Music Innovation Pathway has three pillars: music industry, music education, and STEM of music and sound. Kyle Liss, Music Innovation Program Manager, said that the project was created specifically to speak to the latter. “I wanted a design challenge that enabled students’ creativity and was still musical at heart, while connecting to the STEM of music and sound.”
Liss added that he has been impressed by the range of projects and solutions each group came up with, and that this is one of the few—and to his knowledge the only current—K-12 structures embedding rapid Arduino/MIDI instrument design challenges inside an ongoing district program.
Blending human creativity with technology, note by note, line by line, or even instrument by instrument, we can’t wait to hear what these students will come up with next.