Band of Singing/Playing Robots

[donna plasky]

Hi, everyone. There was a university science fair recently in my city, and the newspaper printed a short article about it. This normally would fall outside my area of interest, but in the article it mentioned that, among other things, the students built a musical band of robots which sing and also play instruments. I couldn't resist clicking on the URL which took me to the YouTube video posted below. It's really rather cute, if anyone is interested in looking at the video. I put a link to the article as well...but the YouTube video is what I wanted most to share with you. Now, if I could just train these robots to sing, "I'll even bring along a magic moon, just to make you feel alright, let me be the one..."

Kind regards,
Donna

http://www.philly.com/philly/business/20120426_Tech_Life__Shooting_hoops_at_the__lsquo_bot_expo.html




Four of Drexel's HUBO robots perform the Beatles' "Come Together" in a demonstration that combines cutting-edge engineering technology and research with creative expression, produced by the Music & Entertainment Technology Laboratory (MET-lab). The HUBOs are operating autonomously (not human-controlled). Their movements are directed by student-developed software to perform the gestures necessary to produce the appropriate notes and beats as dictated by a musical score. Every sound in the video was performed by the robots.

MET-lab student Matthew Prockup created the musical arrangement for drum kit and three "Hubophones", novel percussion instruments designed and constructed by the lab for this performance.

HUBO was designed and developed by the Korea Advanced Institute of Technology (KAIST) Hubo Lab (Dr. Jun Ho Oh, Director). Drexel Engineering kicked-off National Engineers Week by unveiling seven HUBO humanoids at an unprecedented showcase event on February 20, 2012. Their presence at Drexel is part of a large collaborative project with KAIST and seven other U.S. universities with the goal of rapidly advancing humanoids research.

More information: http://drexel.edu/engineering/news/arch ... nterpiec...