Introduction |
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I used to build battle robots, but I found
building musical robots is more interesting.
The robot band consists of five humanoid robots.
The height of the three robots is 80 cm. The
heights of other two robots are 60cm and 40cm.
Every robot has more than 22 servomotors as
joints. Although they are sitting on a chair,
they can stand. Four of them play electronic
drums, two metallophones, and a set of bells.
(The unique drum set is made of acrylic.)
One of them is a singer with voice synthesis. In
dark places, the LED of each robot glows
beautifully. |
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The robots are my original productions. They
look similar but different from each other and
there is only one in the world. I made their
frames with CNC and 3D printer. The servo motors
and a controller are by Japanese maker
KONDO-KAGAKU corp. I also developed a dedicated
software which synchronizes the robots.
The acrylic electronic drums played by a robot
are also original production. Hi hat, cymbal,
snare drum and bass drum are beautifully
designed. Every drum sends signal to the sound
generator when it is hit. (The sound generator
is a commercial product by KORG. It takes
trigger from audio cable and generates drum
sounds.)
All robots are connected to one laptop computer.
A standard MIDI file is loaded into the
dedicated software. A standard MIDI file can be
made by normal musical sequence software. One of
the MIDI channels is assigned to each robot. For
example, data of channel 1 is sent to robot A,
and data of channel 2 is sent to robot B. When
data is played back, commands for controlling
the servomotors from dedicated software are sent
to each robot through a serial cable. The audio
signals of the song are also sent to a voice
synthesis device. (The voice synthesis is a
commercial product by KORG. It generates
VOCALOID Hatune-Miku voice.) For the singer
robot, commands to take the pose are sent
instead of voice data.
The last year, exhibitions of the robot band
were held in the United States, China and Taiwan
as well as in Japan.
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About Maker |
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Tetsuji Katsuda is a professional engineer for
musical software also motor and Sensors. Living
in Kyoto, Japan and makes robots, original
electric musical instruments, and art works as
hobbies. |
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Songs |
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Twinkle Twinkle Little Star |
French Traditional |
London Bridge |
English Traditional |
Mary Had A Little Lamb |
American Traditional |
When the Saints Go Marching
In |
American Traditional |
Red dragonfly |
Japanese
Traditional |
Soap Bubbles |
Japanese Traditional |
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Additional to these songs, robots can play songs
with midi files. |
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Concept of Robot
Band |
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