ABB Percussion Robot Performs Industrial Symphony
Writing by Evan Ackerman on Thursday, 6 of May , 2010 at 2:26 am
To kick off Hannover Messe (an industrial fair in Germany) last month, ABB taught one of their industrial robots to beat on stuff. Musically.
The robot percussionist was accompanied in its performance by a “real” cellist who commented “the industrial robot is a congenial partner and dominated his instruments with some virtuosity”.
The robot wasn’t an autonomous musician, at least not entirely… It looked like the guy controlling the robot was telling it what sequence of pre-programmed movements to make. If I’m not mistaken, he’s doing some stuff with a Tenori-On also, but I have no idea what… Maybe mixing background loops on the fly?
I love it when companies who build serious industrial robots take a step back and say, “let’s just do something cool,” because robots are cool, and they’re good for much much more than just totally taking over from us humans.
[ ABB ]
Thanks Maanasi!
Comments (5)
Category: Industrial,Musical
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Comment by airun
Made Thursday, 6 of May , 2010 at 4:35 pm
If I were to do something like that, I think I would have pushed the robot a little harder.
Comment by Maanasi
Made Thursday, 6 of May , 2010 at 9:29 pm
No problem Evan . A big thanks to you too :)
Comment by Mark!
Made Wednesday, 12 of May , 2010 at 11:42 am
That’s a novation launchpad! (not a tenori-on) which mean he’s almost for certain using ableton live. which means that he’s probably triggering loops, some of which may indeed be background music directly from the computer, and some of which i speculate are passing midi messages to whatever controls the robot. sounds pretty complicated, but it should be a pretty simple set up.
Comment by Prabhu
Made Thursday, 29 of September , 2011 at 1:59 am
We at ABB, are giving away RobotStudio – Industrial Robot simulation software free for 1 year.
Know more at http://facebook.com/robotstudio
Lets join hands to build a better world with automation & increased productivity,
/lets build the tomorrow./
Comment by Melvin Ringbloom
Made Thursday, 17 of November , 2011 at 9:57 am
Nice website ! Thanks for creating it. Keep going that way.
