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Lazy Musicians Spawn Robot Ukulele
densetsu writes: "Three weeks ago, instead of forking over 5 whole bucks for an actual ukelele instruction booklet, I decided to teach myself for free using internet resources.
Now that my will (and fingers) have been broken, these guys offer a faustian shortcut. They built a Lego Mindstorms-powered REMOTE CONTROLLED self-playing ukulele. The site has some nice photos and mindstorms code. Rock super-stardom, here I come!"
Can't wait for the tour.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
... all well and good. But the question remains; why would you want to play an ukulele?
Bah!
.. and Sum41. The robot ukulele already has more talent than all of them put together.
tinfoilmedia
I think they're lying - why else would they provide no MP3's? It's not like the Late Great Bob is going to file suit under the DMCA. ** Got to work out why these things can LOOK like they may work, but everyone wants to hear 'em!
So this is where all the Back Street boys/n-sync/Brittany Spears music is coming from.
Now let's see which is more sexy... Brittany or a Ukelelie playing lego robot...
hrmmm dilemmas dilemmas.
Have you hugged your Karma Whore today?
Strings We Be, the string manufacturer, hereby announce a change to the EULA. Should our strings be installed in any instrument, they should only be played by human hands. This excludes all chimpanzees, robots, and individuals with prostetic hands. We apologize for any inconvenience.
Madness is only a state of mind
. . . but not new. And these guys actually have sound samples, too . . .
Player pianos were made back in Victorian times, and a piano is a "stringed instrument", isn't it? This (very cool) "player ukelele" uses modern computer code, where the pianos used a punch card-like system more akin to older computers. A player piano still had to have a human operator to work foot pedals etc. to give the tune depth and "personality", but in principle this could have been automated too, once the sequence was worked out.
I *do* wish they'd posted sound samples...
Freedom: "I won't!"
Sounds cool guys, how about posting some sound files?
You just have to love stoner geeks.
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
With this technology, they're well on their way to being the loudest band in the universe. Now we just need a good interplanetary internet backbone, so they can send the robot commands from orbit (preferably around a different planet).
-- Microsoft is the best becau[INVALID PAGE FAULT IN MODULE Signature.exe AT ADDRESS 0x4353]
"You'd only need 4 "fingers" to do a guitar and maybe a motor to move them up and down the fretboard"
I think it would be easier to get the robot to play open chords with 6 "fingers" than to play barred chords with 4.
The ultimate test would be to have the ukelele play with a robotic drummer and put a robotic voice over top of it (like Dr. Sbaitso or the voice from OK Computer)
OddManIn: A Game of guns and game theory.
There was some stuff they didn't really mention on their site that people might be interested in. They used the Handyboard as their microcontroller system. You can learn more about it here.
http://www.handyboard.com/
This would also mean they are using Interactive C (a stripped down version of C) for their programming.
Now if only someone would "be lazy" and come up with the cure to cancer...
Seriously, though... I wonder how long til someone comes up with mods for any instrument out there... a piano wouldn't be that hard to do, you'd just need 88 fingers for your robot instead of 4...
Now if Legos Held together A little stronger. Then you can make them play Bigger instruments. Like the Double Bass. I dought the Legos will be strong enough to play Larger instruments. That take higher action. To Bad there is no mind erector sets.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
final projects for the class
Of course, this means they actually did this back in January, and "the internet" is just finding out about it now. Maybe they have a full band at this point.
No, just a Lego Don Ho.
I think it's worth pointing out that both the guys who did this are students at Middlebury College, where for several years now "Lego Robotics" has been offered as a J-term class.
During the one-month January semester, or "J-term," you take just one class. Some of the classes are frivolous, though physics or foreign language majors tend to have to take things in their fields. Anyway, Lego Robotics has been one of the more sought-after courses. Partly because of the inherent appeal of Lego robots, partly because it has a schedule that allows a lot of days to be devoted to skiing.
Check this out.
Robot saxophonist and trumpeter from Japan.
don't forget to play computer-generated music using the classical rules of harmony, like on this french site on an automaton
Google passes Turing test : see my journal
ummmmm.... can anyone name a rock superstar who plays the ukelele??? Tiny tim???
George Harrison was a big collector of ukeleles; particularly Gibsons and Martins. He frequently gave them to friends as gifts. I'm told that on his recent tour Paul McCartney regularly performed "Something" on ukelele as a tribute to Harrison. Seems to me that Brian May played some ukelele on a few of the mid-'70s Queen records, too.
Captured By Robots is this amazing one-man performance with one of the most intricate rigs I've ever seen. He's really impressive to see live, and I recommend checking his tour/shows page especially if you're on the West Coast. At least one regular slashdot poster has taken his /. handle from the guy's act (The Ape With No Name), or I'm assuming that's where it's from. s