Particle Wind Chime next generation

After our successful hacking of a particle wind chime at Science Hack Day SF 2010, it’s time to see if I can build a standalone Web-enabled version. I plan to build a hardware module that will connect to a wireless network, download events, and play them. I still need to work out what settings to have in hardware and what to run from software, but that depends on how bulky it gets. The bonus is that the hardware version can automatically include the light show version of the wind chime very easily!

Basic idea: Arduino + XBee + MIDIvox + blinkM connecting to a web server that will feed the events in the correct format. (Update: an XBee won’t work of course for wifi so I’m looking for a good cheap wifi module. It looks like there are some good ones but I welcome recommendations!)

Do the setting of pitch, duration, volume, instrument to various particle properties via rotary BCD switches. (Poll via 5 digital pins, setting one to select channel and send power high while listening on the four output pins which are all in parallel between all channels.)

Also be able to select a known event (via two BCD wheels)–good for testing channel allocations–or request a random new event from a live stream.