The continuing quest to turn every household object into a musical instrument.

In the same vein as the Ototo — an experimental synthesizer that turns electrical charges into sound — is the Illumaphone, “a light-based, spatial, electronic musical instrument” created by Princeton graduate / Codecademy software engineer Bonnie Eisenman.

The Illumaphone (made from “six stolen coffee cups”) uses photoresistors, an Arduino Uno board, and Princeton’s ChucK, a musical programming language developed at Princeton and allows a wave of the hand to control volume and vibrato of each cup’s pre-determined note.

Watch the Illumaphone below and get the whole story on Eisenman’s blog. For something more traditional, check out our feature on the synthesizers that shaped modern music. [via Make]