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Ardu McDuino, Bagpipe Robot
Och, laddies, tha' real question here is "wha wouldnye build a bagpipe-playin' robot?"
(aptly named robot plays the pipes 'Amazing Grace' video)
Popular Instructables maker XenonJohn has built a bagpipe-playing robot called Ardu McDuino that uses an Arduino Mega 2560 board and a pair of 3D-printed prosthetic hands to autonomously play a bagpipe’s chanter.The 3D-printed hands have individual solenoids that allow each finger to cover and uncover the holes on a real bagpipe to produce the notes you hear in the video above. The bagpipe-playing robot has been programmed to play entire songs.
The main limitation of the robot is that it requires a human to blow into the instrument. That’s certainly not ideal if you want to listen to the sweet sounds of Scotland 24/7/365, but XenonJohn says he’s working on a new version that includes an air pump to automatically blow air into the bagpipes.
I could see this a collaborative effort between robots and humans, which seems to be a big deal these days. Or maybe that's just a fallback position, just before total capitulation to the robots.
SF fans may recall the robot pianist from the classic 1953 story Virtuoso by Herbert Goldstone:
The light over the music rack was an eerie island in the brown shadows of the studio. Rollo sat at the keyboard, prim, inhuman, rigid, twin lenses focused somewhere off into the shadows.The massive feet working the pedals, arms and hands flashing and glinting - they were living entities, separate, somehow, from the machined perfection of his body.
(Read more about the robot pianist)
Via Robotics Trends.
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