Southend Astro Pi Sonic Pi competition winners

Congratulations to Iris and Joseph Mitchell from Southend who met Tim Peake after winning the AstroPi SonicPi Competition, 11 years and under.

They composed music using SonicPi code for Tim Peake to listen to on the International Space Station at a Southend Tech Sonic Pi workshop at The Hive in Southend.

The UK Space Agency invited the Southend Raspberry Jam Sonic Pi winners and mentors to meet Tim Peake and we got to talk to Tim and have our photo taken with him – see below.
They also appeared in issue 47 of TheMagPi as shown below.

You can hear “Run To The Stars” by the “Mitchell Mob” and see their Sonic Pi code below, but first here’s Tim Peake on board the International Space Station to show you how it is being played on the AstroPi unit :

Tim sent a tweet down with the message :

 

Credit: Christopher Ison / University of Portsmouth / UK Space Agency

 

use_bpm 120
numberofbars = 0
live_loop :bar do
  sleep 4
  numberofbars = numberofbars + 1
  if numberofbars == 32 then stop
  end
end

live_loop :funkypiano do
  sync :bar
  with_fx :ixi_techno do
    use_synth :piano
    4.times do
      play 72
      play 75
      play 79
      sleep 0.5
    end
    4.times do
      play 62
      play 65
      play 69
      sleep 0.5
    end
  end
end

live_loop :bassdrums do
  sync :bar
  sleep 16
  64.times do
    4.times do
      sample :drum_bass_hard, amp: 1
      sleep 1
    end
  end
end

live_loop :cymbals do
  sync :bar
  sleep 32
  16.times do
    sleep 2
    with_fx :reverb, room: 0.9 do
      4.times do
        sample :drum_cymbal_hard, pan: 1, amp: 1
        sleep 0.5
      end
    end
  end
end

live_loop :squelchybass do
  sync :bar
  sleep 48
  with_fx :ixi_techno do
    16.times do
      sample :bass_voxy_hit_c, amp: 1
      sleep 1
    end
  end
end

live_loop :aliens do
  sync :bar
  sleep 80
  8.times do
    use_synth [:prophet,:tb303,:pulse,:square,:supersaw,:beep,:sine,:hollow].tick
    8.times do
      play_pattern_timed [56,82,77,48,42, 72,98,34],[0.5,0.5]
    end
  end
end

The Mitchell Mob will be showing their composition at future events and helping mentor people in Sonic Pi.

Their entry is listed on the Astro Pi site.

An entry in the Astro Pi science experiment competition from Southend was highly commended. This was created as part of a series of workshops held by Southend Tech in Southend :

“Direction Sense” by Marian Jago is an experiment to investigate how the crew’s sense of orientation changes during a long space mission; specifically, it explores how well the crew can estimate turning 360 degrees whilst free-floating. You close your eyes, hold the Astro Pi against your chest, begin spinning, and press any button to start the experiment. Then when you think you’ve done a complete 360-degree spin, you press any button to stop. As the astronauts have already been through some rigorous tests, nobody should be getting too dizzy.

 

You can see the other Astro Pi Sonic Pi competition winners on the Raspberry Pi site here and the science experiment winners on the AstroPi site above.


Congratulations to all the other winners and everyone who took part in the competition.