Since it relies on a long camera exposure time, it can only produce still images by nature. However, nothing would stop you from painstakingly making several frames and do a stop-motion kind of thing. Of course, every frame would be aligned slightly differently in each frame, if the rod is carried in your hand, since human motion isn't perfect. You can see this as a part of the craft, and live with it.
Of course you'd need to build the thing or convince the creator to record frames for you. (I'm not the creator and I haven't built one, so I'm not of much help.)
I'm not too sure how I could interface an external controller other than via MIDI - and I have no clue how I could implement that.
Gate+CV (control voltage)! This is what an analog synth would be using internally, only that now it's coming from the outside through a couple of jacks. Many old synths will provide it.
Oscillator: You can either go analog, or use a microcontroller like an Arduino for the intelligence + the oscillator.
If you go digital, you can still do the waveforms you want, but possibly with NES/chip style bit reduction for the saw/triangle. What you want to do is probably to use a passive resistor ladder DAC, which allows you to oscillators with a few bits (as in binary bits of data) with only some microcontroller outputs and a few resistors. You will still likely want to use a 'duino if you're looking to implement MIDI. And the digital method has the added advantage of being in tune at all times without trimming.
If you go analog, I recommend a design built around the XR2206, like a simplified version of the XR-VCO by Thomas Henry. It can produce sine and/or triangle in its basic configuration. I recommend just going for triangle as sine always be approximated by using a low filter setting, but otherwise you can add a switch to choose between the two. But the interesting part is the skew function. It flips half of the waveform so you first get a triangle /\/\/\ which morphs into something like /-/-/- at medium settings and finally ////// at the highest setting.
As for controlling the synth, you basically have two options if you want to keep it analog and simple. Carbon strip or a resistor voltage divider ladder with a button for each note. Carbon strip is what the Gakken syntesizer is using for example, but I'm not sure whether this can be achieved by on a DIY level. The voltage divider ladder works like this: you have a bunch of resistors in series. One end is connected to a positive reference voltage and the other end to ground. In each step you're going to have a consecutively higher voltage. Each point is connected to a switch which in turn is connected to the voltage control input. Simple example:
___ ___ ___ ___ ___
+5V - |___| - o - |___| - o - |___| - o - |___| - o - |___| - Ground
| 4 V | 3 V | 2 V | 1 V
That way you get a number of evenly spaced voltage reference points that can be used as control voltages. This system fails as soon as you press two keys simultaneously, but hey you can't get everything...
A creative way to this approach is to use a printed circuit board where you use copper shapes as keys and play the thing with a "pen" attached with a wire. This is the approach Cheap, Fat and Open is using, even though it's using a different wiring of the electronics since it's a digital synth.
A nice trick you can use to almost detune the oscillator is a sawtooth phase shifter. There's a schematic for a really simple one here: http://rubidium.dyndns.org/~magnus/synths/schematics/ I think that one flipped the + and - of one of the opamps, however. Here's a demonstration of this effect unit in my modular homebuilt modular system, with an oscilloscope view and annotations explaining what I'm twiddling with. Vhen modulated with an LFO, it fattens up the sound a bit compared to a simple sawtooth.
As for a sequencer, what are you hoping it will control? Pitch? Other parameters? Make sure this isn't shooting over the target and that it will actually be useful.
And then there's the envelope, VCA, filter and LFO design aspects. I don't really have time to write more about this right now, and I also have less useful advice on those parts of the synth. But before I conclude, let me warn you of feature creep, i.e. adding too much shit and not being able to finish the synth, especially if you're on a deadline, which you probably are since it's a course. With complexity, the number of things that can go wrong increases exponentially. I'm of the opinion that having to debug your stuff is the best, if not the only way to gain practical knowledge. However, respect deadlines and know your limits.
This is a pretty cool project. The idea is that you have an individually programmable RGB LED strip that you modulate over time, while walking in front of a camera. With a long enough exposure, you get a 2D image. But the really cool aspect is that the camera will also capture the shadow of the thing, giving the impression that you actually have a plane of light floating mid-air.
I think we come from different backgrounds. I've had a mindset of helping people for a long time, but at some point you get jaded. 8bc is saturated with users who ask the same questions, even when there are reference posts with the information they're looking for right in front of their eyes. You can tell they're not even trying, but want other people to do all the work for them. It's not about being a noob per se, but the lacking attention span and/or low age. At some point you realize it's not worth your time. If they have the skill and motivation, they will find a way eventually.
For example, when people ask if it's worth prosounding their DMG, I usually give them the advice, tongue-in-cheek (or not), that they should make at least one song that's really good before considering a prosound.
Also, I agree very much with what godinpants said.
roboctopus, here's a short summary. This site was created as a spinoff from 8bc in early 2010 mainly due to certain issues with the owner of 8bc, Jose Torres. I won't go into too much detail on that but it involved a stolen hardware and software design for the cartridges he was selling, a line of new products that turned out to be vaporware and lost money for a small number of people. And then to top it off, he banned or even deleted the user accounts of people who criticized him for it with explanation "my site, my rules".
And secondly, there's a more general attitude of mocking 8bc for being filled with noobs who, for example, don't know how to plug in an audio cable between a Gameboy and soundcard line input. And there's a lot of truth to this, unfortunately. After that question was asked a few times, someone wrote a sarcastically easy "spoon feeding" guide to recording. I'll see if I can find it once the site comes back up.
You see, the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle states that it's always uncertain whether you will receive a question about the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. Until the interview has been conducted, the question is both asked and not asked in the same time.
GM: Not possible unless your MBC (memory bank controller) has support for it. (Actually, there is one possibility if your cartridge is using a flash chip that is reprogrammable from the Gameboy.)
