how to program a robot that can play a guitar

[robotwannabe]

I'm planning to create a robot that can play a guitar independently, wherein you just need to input chords, musical scores or tabs in your program then the robot will be able to play it. this robot will be able to play basic major and minor guitar chords and can do both strumming and plucking. I just want to hear comments from you guys. what do u think of this project? also how should we implement this and what necessary devices, motors, things we will be needing in making this? what can be the significance and future applications of making this project? what kind of program can we use here? and what kind of controller device do we need? and what software do you need to program this and how would you program this? thank you in advance...

[Paul.Esson]

Sounds like a pritty cool, but fairly hard project. I guess you may want to look at similar robats that have existed, say robotic hands ( if you want your robot to have human hands ).

If your robot doesn't have to be say Jimi Hendrix it may be alot easyer, I would start by taking alook at things like Phidgets, http://www.phidgets.com/. They are relitivly cheep controllers for things like servos, encoder, moters and other junk like that.

they also have libarys for java, VisualBasic, C, python and about every other programming language you may want.

I would think you can keep this whole project out of hard real time ( great advantage really ).

But yea, you will have to figure out the mechanics of the robot, but the phidgets site should hopefully hope you discover what is availible for use.

If you are going to have a hand moving up and down a fret board you will have to make certain it has some idea of where it is on the fret board. A way I have seen this done before with industrial packing equipment is the use of a origin point ( i guess you would say ) each time the robot starts up it slides its hand down to the orientation point ( it can tell its there because you would clip a proxy sensor on the origin ) then you would prolly attempt to use an encoder for monitoring the movement of the your parts. Allowing you to have a fair idea of where everything is in reality.

I hope some of that made sens

[robotwannabe]

what were planning to do is not really a robot hand, its like a mechanism that is composed of solenoids for pressing chords at the fret board and probably a double acting solenoid to strum the guitar. may i ask, what other components, materials, devices do i need for this project? what kind of motors to use, kind of controllers? any suggestions? and how much each of those cost? thanks..

[Paul.Esson]

Yea, That makes the problem much simper :P.

Would you really need any motors ? If you had enough solenoids to cover the entire fret board then I guess you wouldn't, But perhaps you are looking at using a small group of solenoids that slide up and down the fret broad ( I guess the advantage of this may be cost and the ability to do slides. )

If you where going to use a motor you may want to get a small variable frequency drive to control it or a DC motor control. ( A VFD is prolly an overkill ), There is some of them on that Phidgets site again.

If you want you will also need something to switch the voltage for this you could use a controller with a couple of digital output and some relays. you prolly want somthing like this but with more outputs. There are defiantly other people who make similar hardware that allows digital/analog input and output anything like this can be used for actuating your solenoids with the help of a relay and a power supply.

I hope I have helped.

[hammerhead]

I would suggest you use stepper motors Stepper motors for the controllers try pic pic microcontroller or AVR series from Atmel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmel_AVR. Coding for both is done in C and can be easily programmed ( I use AtMega 16 from Atmel). The softwares are variable depending on the microcontroller you use. I can tell only about the AVR series as they are the only ones I have used.

Here in India these microcontrollers cost from 110Rs + (approx 3 USD) Atmega 16 costs Rs 200 (5 USD). Apart from these you will require various IC's for driving the motors i.e. L293D or L298 or ULN 2003.

Personally I think its a little difficult project. I suggest you start with something smaller just to get a hang of microcontrollers and motors. A simple obstacle detection robot would be a good example.

[robotwannabe]

a ok ok.. got those ideas..il take note of hose things. btw, may i ask, what other kind of mechanism or any other idea for the strumming part? another thing, what kind of design should we implement for this project? i mean the structure of this robot? thanks

[robotwannabe]

also may i ask why is it that we can't get off with motors? were planning to put a linear motor for the slider part of the robot. meaning the box like mechanism that can press the strings in the guitar. does a solenoid has the same capacity as a motor? i think a double acting one will have a slower reaction time or speed compared to a motor...