This Koi-Pond Guitar Is a Raspberry Pi-Powered MIDI Controller

The Koi-Tar looks like a koi pond caught in mid-splash and carried onto a runway. It is also a working MIDI controller built around a Raspberry Pi Pico.

Maker and engineer Monique Evette created the instrument as part of her Whimsical Machines series, a growing set of playable objects imagined as instruments fairies might use. The Koi-Tar appeared at New York Fashion Week, where its mix of fabrication, music technology, and wearable art made the electronics part of the visual performance instead of hiding them in a conventional box.

The body began as simulated water

The translucent housing was modeled in Blender. Evette used water-physics simulation to shape the surface like a splash frozen in time, then produced the body with SLA resin printing.

That workflow matters because the form is not decoration applied after the instrument was engineered. The apparent motion of water determines the physical object that holds the electronics and presents the controls.

Instead of a row of familiar keys or knobs, the playing surface uses PCB capacitive-touch sensors designed to resemble lily pads. Touch becomes part of the pond metaphor, and the interface makes sense visually before anyone explains the circuitry.

A Pico sits inside the pond

The instrument is powered by a SPOKE-mini resistor array containing a Raspberry Pi Pico. The Pico reads the touch sensors and turns the performer's input into MIDI control data that can drive external music software or hardware.

That is a useful distinction: the Koi-Tar is not trying to reproduce the acoustics of a wooden guitar. It is a digital controller wearing the silhouette and performance language of an instrument. The electronics can map touch to notes and controls while the body is free to become something impossible to carve from a conventional guitar blank.

Musicians Benn Jordan and Venus Theory tested the Koi-Tar during development and gave feedback on the design. That review connects its sculptural ambition to practical performance. An object can look extraordinary on a runway and still need to feel responsive in a musician's hands.

Engineering and art share the same surface

Evette studied computer science and physics and worked for years as a software engineer while developing her art practice. The Whimsical Machines project brings those paths together rather than treating technical work as support for the "real" artwork.

The Koi-Tar's strongest idea is that an interface can carry a complete fictional world. The lily pads are controls. The resin splash is structure. The koi-pond theme tells the audience how to read the object, while the Pico turns that story into input a synthesizer can use.

That same approach can travel beyond novelty instruments. Fabrication tools let designers build controls around motion, nature, costumes, characters, or spaces instead of forcing every idea into a rectangular panel. Small microcontrollers make those strange surfaces electrically practical.

A glimpse of a stranger orchestra

Evette's stated goal is an orchestra of instruments that fairies might play. That gives the Koi-Tar a role larger than one viral object: it is a prototype for a consistent family of machines with their own visual logic.

The project works because its hook survives at every distance. From across the room, it is a transparent koi-pond guitar. Up close, it is resin fabrication, capacitive PCB design, a Pico-based controller, and a performer-tested interface. The fantasy gets attention; the engineering lets someone actually play it.