Love at first note

Inspiration

Love At First Note was inspired by the idea that music brings people closer together. With Valentine’s energy in mind, we wanted to create something playful, interactive, and memorable; not just a game, but a shared experience. Instead of a traditional quiz, we imagined a romantic challenge where couples laugh, compete, and create a small memory together.

What it does

Love At First Note is a romantic song-guessing game built for two players.

The system plays a short clip of a romantic song.
Players race to press their buzzer.
The first player to buzz in records their guess using a voice recorder module.
The game evaluates the answer and awards points.
Scores and song information are displayed on the touchscreen.
At the end of the game, an ESP32 camera captures a photo of the couple or winner as a keepsake.

It turns a simple guessing game into an interactive, emotional experience.

How we built it

We combined hardware and software to bring the experience to life:

Arduino to control buzzers, LEDs, sensors, and game flow
Touchscreen display to show instructions, scores, and results
Voice recording module, coupled with a custom-built amplifier, for players to record their guesses
Speech-to-text integration to interpret player responses
ESP32-CAM to capture and display a final photo

Challenges we ran into

Designing the game logic was harder than expected. We had to carefully think through every possible condition (what if both buzz at the same time? what if the answer is unclear? what if no one answers?, etc. ).
We spent a lot of time debugging hardware connections, especially ensuring stable communication between modules.
Synchronizing audio playback, buzzer input, and voice recording required precise timing.
Managing state transitions without breaking the flow of the game took multiple iterations.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

The full game works end-to-end.
Buzzers, voice input, scoring, and display are all integrated.
The ESP32 camera feature makes the experience memorable.
We successfully combined multiple hardware components into one cohesive system.

What we learned

How to design and manage a state-based interactive system.
The importance of modular coding when working with hardware.
How critical debugging and systematic testing are in embedded systems.
How to integrate sensors, displays, and microcontrollers into a unified experience.
That building something emotional and fun can be just as challenging as building something purely technical.