If you want to play a beat over and over, depending on what is selected in a grid, a sequencer should be your instrument of choice. In this case, one line of wooden cylinders represents what sounds to play, while the other line represents when to play them. The beat goes down the timing line, then starts over at the beginning.
This, of course, isn’t the first sequencer we’ve featured here, but the simple physical design of a wooden base and wooden pucks is quite appealing. It was made at the School of Form Physical Computing for a course called “Aesthetics of Interaction.” Wood parts were made with the help of the university’s CNC router, and control was accomplished using an Arduino Uno (ATmega328) with multiplexers and an MP3 module.
Besides a clean wooden design, what sets this build apart is their use of two colors on each puck to select the sample played. The infrared sensors they used can sense the intensity of the light reflected and control the input appropriately. Though they currently only use a black and white color, it’s noted that the sensors are capable of grayscale sensitivity. This could, in theory, be used for a MIDI instrument.
For another much larger sequencer, why not check out the huge GRIDI table?