Seraph: An Educational Framework for Building Sensor-Driven Interactive Art and Music Projects

Solomon Rosenthal, Ajay Kapur, and Andrew Piepenbrink

Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression

Abstract

In recent years, the DIY controller-building and sensor-based interactive art communities have grown significantly, driven by more accessible hardware and software infrastructures, audio and MIDI-oriented components, and new accessible creative coding and software frameworks. However, designing a custom MIDI controller or sensor-based interactive project remains non-trivial, requiring substantial engineering expertise. For musicians, artists, and makers whose primary skillsets lie outside of that domain, the friction between idea and finished product can fully halt development. The Seraph project addresses this problem by making it faster, more reliable and more accessible for educators, hobbyists and students to prototype MIDI controllers and interactive installation works without sacrificing flexibility or open source access. This paper presents the design and development of Seraph, a hardware and software platform intended to facilitate the rapid creation of USB-MIDI NIME controllers and sensor-based interactive art using the Teensy 4.1 microcontroller.

Citation

Solomon Rosenthal, Ajay Kapur, and Andrew Piepenbrink. 2026. Seraph: An Educational Framework for Building Sensor-Driven Interactive Art and Music Projects. Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.20784468 [PDF]

BibTeX Entry

@inproceedings{nime2026_155,
 abstract = {In recent years, the DIY controller-building and sensor-based interactive art communities have grown significantly, driven by more accessible hardware and software infrastructures, audio and MIDI-oriented components, and new accessible creative coding and software frameworks. However, designing a custom MIDI controller or sensor-based interactive project remains non-trivial, requiring substantial engineering expertise. For musicians, artists, and makers whose primary skillsets lie outside of that domain, the friction between idea and finished product can fully halt development. The Seraph project addresses this problem by making it faster, more reliable and more accessible for educators, hobbyists and students to prototype MIDI controllers and interactive installation works without sacrificing flexibility or open source access. This paper presents the design and development of Seraph, a hardware and software platform intended to facilitate the rapid creation of USB-MIDI NIME controllers and sensor-based interactive art using the Teensy 4.1 microcontroller.},
 address = {London, United Kingdom},
 articleno = {155},
 author = {Solomon Rosenthal and Ajay Kapur and Andrew  Piepenbrink},
 booktitle = {Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression},
 doi = {10.5281/zenodo.20784468},
 editor = {Benedict Gaster and João Tragtenberg and Anna Xambó and Tom Mitchell},
 issn = {2220-4806},
 month = {June},
 note = {},
 numpages = {6},
 pages = {1257--1262},
 title = {Seraph: An Educational Framework for Building Sensor-Driven Interactive Art and Music Projects},
 track = {paper},
 url = {http://nime.org/proceedings/2026/nime2026_155.pdf},
 year = {2026}
}