Robot Band

Introduction

	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.
	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.

About Maker

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.

Songs

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

Additional to these songs, robots can play songs with midi files.

Concept of Robot Band

The idea is that "synchronize several robots and let them play music."
Connect PC and each robot with a serial cable,

Dedicated software loads a MIDI file, then each robot plays the assigned part.
（PWM type and serial type servo and controller are mixed. These are controlled by the PC.
Vocaloid sings the songs.

Part assignment

Hatsune Miku doll	Vocal	Sings a song with voice synthesis.
Miss. Tomato	Vocal Bass	Sings a song with voice synthesis. Plays acry pan (turtle percussion instrument).
Katori-Kun	Melody (Lead guitar-like position)	Plays a color chime bars. Since it is a puppet doll, in fact human manipulate and it perform music.
Kosan-Kun 1	Melody	Plays color chime bars. Playing the main melody when Katri-kun is not used. When Katri-kun is used, it plays obbigard etc.
Chibisan-Kun	Accompaniment (Rhythm guitar position)	Plays color chime bars. Since it can only play 2 chords at the same time, it plays chord notes with arpeggio.
Mamesan-Kun	Percussion	Performs Japanese drums, bells and other percussions.
Kosan-Kun 2	Electronic drums	Plays the acry - drums (electronic drums).
Dekasan-Kun	Moderator	Acts as a moderator at the event.