Musical Geodesic Dome

I've been a fan of Richard Buckminster ("Bucky") Fuller's work for a longtime. Born on July 12, 1895, Bucky was an American architect, systems theorist, writer, designer, inventor, philosopher, and futurist. While teaching at Black Mountain College near Asheville, North Carolina where I live, he invented (some say "re-invented") the geodesic dome. My fascination with geodesic domes began early in life. I've built several small geodesic domes and when I became involved in the Maker Movement and exhibiting at Maker Faires I thought it would be fun to create a geodesic dome that people interacted with. And thus, the Musical Geodesic Dome was born.

How it works

At the peak of the dome there is an old cell phone connected to a bluetooth speaker and a Makey Makey. The cell phone is running a Scratch program written by Abigayle Webb. The code is based on the "Sampler" program from Makey Makey. All of the struts not touching the ground are wrapped in conductive tape. The blue struts are connected to "Earth" on the Makey Makey and the remaining struts are connected to WASDFG and up, down, left, right, space, click on the Makey Makey. When someone touches a blue strut AND a white strut simultaneously then a music loop will play. Each white strut causes a different sound to play. The Scratch code is written in such a way that the type of music changes every three minutes (Scratch code is HERE). 

Winner of the "Maker of Merit" Award at the 2025 Orlando Maker Faire!  I brought my Musical Geodesic Dome to the Orlando Maker Faire in November 2025. It was my first time exhibiting (or even attending!) that event and it was AMAZING. It is now the largest Maker Faire in the United States with over 17,000 people attending over the course of three days.  There were over 300 exhibitors and people loved my project. At the end of the last day of the event a group of organizers walked up and awarded me a "Maker of Merit" trophy (3D printed of course). They said the organizers award only 12 of them each year. It was a huge honor.