I am working on an electromechanical device to help a friend with muscular dystrophy play the French horn. Because she has little finger strength, the device will transfer a small press on a touchpad into a large force on the keys. After some thought, I determined that my design will feature a capacitive touchboard HAT for input, the Raspberry Pi Zero computer for processing, and three servos for output. I will be programming in Python and doing other electronics work like soldering. On the mechanical side, I will make (probably 3D print) a cam to translate the servo's rotary motion into a linear push on the keys, and I may need to add a spring mechanism in order to achieve fast enough movement of keys (six notes per second).
