An Electronic Tin Whistle

The tin whistle is a traditional Irish instrument with six holes for pitch control, which you may have heard in a variety of jaunty tunes. Bertović, of the Volos Projects YouTube page, decided to create his own modern take on this instrument with an ATmega328P and a small buzzer.

The build is constructed with a pair of custom PCBs, with one mounting six electronic "air hole" buttons, along with an ATmega328P processor, plus a small electronic buzzer and a few support electronics. There's also a red LED onboard, which was eventually turned off because it was a bit annoying, and to save power.

On the bottom PCB, a seventh button is used to change the octave played by the upper six inputs, allowing for a much greater musical range. Power is provided by a 3.7V LiPo, and the whole thing is switched on and off by simply plugging/unplugging the connector.

Cleverly, instead of a traditional mouthpiece, Bertović connected a small switch that can be pushed down by the operator’s lip. This allows for a similar play/silence control scheme as with the traditional whistle, though he notes that this could be improved, perhaps with an airflow sensor. One could even see this sort of sensor implemented as an analog device, allowing for volume, or even pitch control, based on one’s breath.

A demo of this fun whistle is shown in the video below. More info on the project, including Arduino code and a link to buy the PCB, can be found in the video description.