The field of robotics has made tremendous progress, and robots today can play music as well as make their own music.
Researchers have been trying to make robots play music since 1985, and they have made great progress since then. check out the results for yourself; its pretty outstanding.
Scientists at University of Cambridge Make Robotic Hand that can ‘Play’ Piano
Scientists at the University of Cambridge have developed a 3D printed robotic hand which can play simple musical phrases on the piano by moving its wrist.
Nasa’s Robotic Keyboard for Lady Gaga that Actually Dances to the Beats
Several experts believe that Robotics will enhance art and music in the years to come. Here you can actually get a glimpse of what its capable of doing.
Lady Gaga is a great performer but at the last Grammy’s, what caught the attention of most is the keyboard that she was playing on (she was playing Bowie’s song ‘Suffragette City’).
However, the digital keyboard was no ordinary keyboard, it was a robotic keyboard designed by none other than NASA (the company that makes satellites & space ships).
The keyboard was made up of several robots that moved in sync with the song itself. Yes, that’s indeed true! The keyboard essentially danced with Lady Gaga during the performance.
The keyboard was the brainchild of Andy Robot, a roboticist and computer animator who worked in tandem with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab to create the robotic keyboard.
Here are some more robots that play music instruments, can sight read, and have even recording albums. Researchers now want to develop Robots that can play aside real musicians.
1985: Called the Don Cuco El Guapo, this robot pianist can read music (through the camera fitted in the eyes) and can read musical scores. It was built by the Universidad Autónoma de Puebla in Mexico
2005: Toyota created a robot that could play trumpet by changing the internal pressure in its mouth. Toyota also made other robots, like a tuba player and drummer, to create a robot marching band.
Watch: Toyota’s Robot Violinist
2008: Greg Locke, a New Zealand-based machine designer, created this robot rock band called The Trons, which had robots on lead guitar, rhythm guitar, drums and the keyboards. The band have recorded songs such as “Sister Robot” and “The Trons Theme.”
2013: Engineers from the University of Tokyo created a robot band called the Z-Machines, and they recorded an entire EP. A U.K.-based electronic composer Squarepusher (Tom Jenkinson) recorded the EP “Music for Robots”.
Another rock band called Compressorhead is composed entirely of robots and have played a series of gigs since 2012.
2015: You now have robots that can make dance moves based on what is being played.
The future: Jazz musician and computer scientist Kelland Thomas is building an AI (Artificial Intelligence) system with the eventual goal of building a robot that can play jazz alongside real musicians.
Student Makes Robotic Hands That Can Play Piano
Student makes robotic hands that can play piano, wins WPI scholarship for Worcester Academy grad.
“Since I’ve been playing piano for 13 years, I figured it would probably be a good idea if I expanded upon my piano skills as well as my engineering skills, and combine my two loves to make a working robot that would move up and down and actually play a piano. So I took the knowledge I had of playing piano and implemented it into code software that could control the hands,” said Matthew Adiletta who was looking for something unique for his senior project, a graduation requirement for Worcester Academy students.
For the project, Adiletta educated himself in electrical engineering (to condense the amount of wires, he built a small, 2.5-by-4-inch circuit board), learnt various programs, wrote his own language, the Arduino Music Control Language, and coded more than 10,000 lines.
And his efforts really seemed to have paid off. Matthew Adiletta took home first prize at the Massachusetts State Science and Engineering Fair, received a cash prize of $1,000 and a $60,000 scholarship to WPI, where he will attend college in the fall. Mr. Adiletta also credits “The Piano Player” for landing him a summer internship, right out of high school, as an assistant validation engineer at Intel Corp.
Not only can it play Star Wars but it’s like a robot. His invention, “The Piano Player” takes sheet music and turns it into a series of letters and numbers that tells the robot how and what to play.
“The moment I felt most accomplished was when I was able to play a ‘Star Wars’ song. It was the ‘Cantina’ song, and I had been working forever trying to be able to play a lot of notes at once, to playing multiple chords and getting the hands in the correct positions, and this song just kind of captured all of that need to get it right.”
Source: telegram
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