This project features a device that can measure the amount of rocking at a gig by the band and the crowd. This was created by Radio 1 Interactive of BBC which uses the crowd’s level, volume, movement, and other factors with the help of an Arduino. The image of the Rockterscale using a guitar scale is shown below.

The amount of rock at the venue would be displayed as well as real-time display on the web. It could even encourage bands and crowds to out-rock each other by showing it at other gigs. The amount of head trashing for both fans and the band is being measured by the Hat of Rock shown below. Also shown is the dance floor which measures the movement while the crow pushing up to an improvised crash barrier at the front is also measured by hooking up a force sensor.

The overall crowd movement is measured by a webcam that is mounted on the ceiling and uses Processing while the music plays. An 8×6 grid divides the image and 48 movement values are given by the difference between the pixels in each grid square for each frame. The loudness of the song as well as the spread of the frequencies in it is measured by an audio processing code based on the audio C library. A “wall of sound” like effect can be obtained from a higher value of frequency. Some beat detection will also be done which will complete the 6 measurements to form an equation in the following summation:

Hat + Floor + Crush + Crowd + Loud + Phat = ROCK

A measure of ‘rock’ between 0 and 9 is generated by each sensor where the data is sent to the displays. A big screen display was built along with a physical scale by a separate team which works on the output side. A guitar-shaped pointer is used to build the physical Rockterscale which also used the combined reading. As shown below, the 6 scales are presented in the big screen. It has a combined scale at the top wherein the fireworks would go off when it reaches 11. In time with the beat, the Rockterscale also pulses.

There is a 3-axis accelerometer mounted in the top of the hat which gives an orientation reading in each of the 3 axes. A movement value is obtained by differentiating these readings. An accelerometer is also attached to the cardboard floor mat which works the same way. The table and an improvised barrier need a reasonable amount of pushing to register in the force sensor mounted in between.

The Arduino boards hooked up to MacBooks are used to power all the sensors where a stream of readings is being produced by each sensor up to 10 times per second. Using Open Sound Control (OSC), the readings are sent asynchronously over the local network to a single Processing application which handles the job of presentation. A stepper motor powered through an Arduino handles the screen display and the guitar pointer.