project proposal.

for my final project i want to make use of an old acoustic guitar i have sitting at home. my idea is to set up a series (or maybe just one) infrared beam that goes the length of the neck (where the strings would go). the beam will be captured by an infrared sensor hooked up to an arduino board. when the user passes his or her hand across the beam, thus disrupting the stream, an action will be triggered, most likely a series of video clips, etc. in this case, the resulting display would probably be shown via the sound hole on the front of the guitar.
i have very little electronics experience, so the hardest part will be learning to set up the arduino and getting the sensor to behave correctly (i.e., the bulk of my project). my plan for displaying it would be to have it hung on a wall so people can just walk up and pass their hand through the beam.