Humanoid Robot Listens To Music, Plays Along On His Theremin

July 8, 2011 by Mike Nathan 13 Comments

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Researcher and YouTube user [mspetitegeek] along with her lab mate [Tatsuhiko Itohara] have been fortunate enough to spend some time working with the HRP-2 humanoid robot from Kawada Industries. Their research has seemingly been focused on using the robot to create real-time interactions with humans for entertainment purposes, at the very least.

The program they created allows the HRP-2 to listen and watch its human counterpart while he plays the guitar in order to recognize a beat pattern. Once the robot catches on, it plays along on his Theremin, matching both notes and rhythm perfectly. Since the human operator is clearly playing at a fairly relaxed pace, we are curious to see a demonstration where the robot required to match a snappier tune – it could be quite interesting.

In the meantime, we’re content to just sit back and enjoy the Mogwai-esque tones of the HRP-2 rocking the Theremin.

Keep reading to see a short video of the HRP-2 in action.

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Humanoid Robot + Homebrew Waldo = Big Smiles

August 24, 2009 by Phil Burgess 11 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCTvggKuPvU&feature=player_embedded]

Robot enthusiast [Vitalijus Rodnovas] built this rig to allow a humanoid robot to mimic his own body movements in real time. [Rodonovas] refers to his man-machine interface as a “master-slave suit,” but elsewhere this is often called a waldo after a prescient 1942 [Robert Heinlein] novella. This project page is slight on details and is mostly written in his native Lithuanian, but the pictures speak volumes, and with a little help from Google Translate we can learn the essential facts: The robot itself is a commercially-available kit, the Kondo KHR-1HV from Japan. The custom-built harness uses a collection of surplus Soviet-era military potentiometers (acquired on eBay) to read the positions of his elbows and shoulders, then an ATmega8-based interface board translates these readings into motion commands sent to the robot’s onboard controller. Some additional notes and code can be found on the RoboSavvy Forum.

Does it work? Just watch. His grin as the video progresses is infectious!

Hack a Day has previously covered other Waldos, but this latest deserves style points for its lightweight simplicity.

Machining Custom Robot Parts

December 18, 2008 by Jason Rollette 14 Comments

cncrobotparts

Robot Magazine has a great article about how to machine custom robot parts. In this article [Matt Bauer] shows the basics of making custom robot parts and skeletal brackets for his humanoid robot creations using a CNC mini-mill. He uses a custom jig overlay designed to make cutting thin sheet stock much easier and to protect his equipment. This template concept creates a platform for many other custom parts going forward. [Matt] includes the .nc g-code files as well as a “how-to” PDF in a ZIP file.