Play Music to Your Own Water Show with the Wasserorgel von Winnenden

Niklas Roy was contacted earlier this year about participating in an art festival called “Drehmoment,” which takes place in the Swabia region of Germany. This region is well known for its high-tech manufacturing capabilities, and as such, participants in the festival were invited to partner up with local companies to make their exhibit. It’s a brilliant concept to promote both what we normally think of as artistic pursuits, as well as the companies that make beautiful machinery that could — should— be considered art itself.

While there was an entire list of companies to choose from, Roy immediately jumped to Kärcher, which produces cleaning equipment, most prominently pressure washers. From there it’s not a huge leap to figure out this developed into an interactive water show.

For controls, Roy put together a beautiful industrial-style panel that houses an Arduino Mega, Adafruit Music Maker Shield, RTC module, audio amplifier, and a variety of other components. This controls eight pressure washers, speakers, and lights, and is played by an electric keyboard that he built to withstand “the misguided enthusiasm of drunk people at 3 ‘o clock at night.”

It’s a brilliant build, and had to be a huge hit at the festival. Unfortunately October 28th marked the end of this event so you can’t pay it a visit. You can, however, find much more information on this “Water Organ of Winnenden” in his project write-up.