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Homemade Robotic Xylophone Plays Holiday Melodies
compumike writes "Just in time to add a bit of geeky holiday cheer to your office, this video demonstrates how to build a robotic xylophone featuring handmade solenoids and aluminum bars, and shows it playing several classic holiday tunes. New songs can be programmed in with C macros, and this project could even be extended to perhaps play a melody when a new e-mail arrived or a software build has finished compiling!"
Wasn't this on /. a few years ago?
That's a glockenspiel. A Xylophone has wooden bars. I know because as a kid I assumed it would be the other way round.
A xylophone has wooden bars. This would more correctly be called a metallophone.
With that important piece of information pointed out, you can all carry on now.
You meanie. Knowing the theory is not the same as actually building it. The problems they solved with using re-pulser magnets at the bottom of the solenoids, hollowing out the striking bars for less mass etc are interesting. They show what happens when you try to build something like this in real life, as opposed to just sitting at home thinking you know it all already.