Gyro is an interactive installation by Mexico City artist Correo Electrónico (Máximo Campo) that explores the relationship between movement, sound, and audience participation. Comprising five modified snare drums suspended as pendulums, the work responds to the acceleration of each pendulum, transforming physical motion into rhythmic and sonic outputs. Gyro invites participants to engage with the piece, generating unique auditory patterns through their interaction.

The five modified drums pay automatically when they detect acceleration— the faster they go, the faster they play. As people interact with the piece they can explore different patterns generated from each drum and the relationship between the other drum’s generated sound.

For the closing of the exhibition, Correo Electrónico and Emiliano Cruz presented a concert using Gyro as the main instrument. They hung three modified snare drums, an electric guitar, and an amplifier. Placing microphones under each drum, they explored the feedbacks generated by the guitar and the vibration of the drums’ heads. Emiliano beats up his hanging guitar with his hands, drumsticks, and even cymbals, generating feedbacks that play through the hanging amp. Correo tunes each drum to the tones of the feedback, making them vibrate and tricking the accelerometers into thinking they’re moving— the drums play uncontrollably when the tone is found.

This concert’s recording is available in Nina Protocol.

The snare drums are metal 14″ each tuned to a different tone. Each drum is intervened with a Raspberry Pi Pico 2, an MPU6050 accelerometer/gyroscope, three 5V solenoids, a 4-channel relay, and a rechargeable battery pack. All the code to process the acceleration data was written in Python on the Pico.

The Pico is the brain of the drum. Connected to it are the MPU6050 and the relay, sending triggers to three solenoids mounted under the drum head. A Python script determines different delays between each hit depending on the acceleration detected. Each drum has different sensitivity to acceleration.

The project was conceived in mid-2024, taking the form of a prototype for a bluetooth controlled self playing snare drum. The idea expanded when Correo Electrónico was invited to showcase his work.

The project was designed, engineered, assembled, and programmed by Correo Electrónico in the span of 1 month. It was presented for a month in Mexico City’s TDROOM gallery in early 2025.