Robotic Pipe Organ
Contents |
History
Inspire
Hey my name is David Tyler and I am computer science student at Bellevue College. I am among the founding members of Exothermic Robotics Club at Redmond High School and I have had a long had an interest in robotics and music. The inspiration for the robotic pipe organ was a natural extension of those interests.
Create
Made from cheap PVC instead of expensive rolled steel tubes, StudentRND’s robotic pipe organ was built on a budget of less than $1500. The organ was begun in late summer of 2011, and mechanically complete by early winter. Fine tuning of the organ is ongoing.
Over the summer of 2011 a robotic pipe organ was created. The organ is played with 25 servos opening and closing valves. They are controlled with a Propeller microprocessor which will interpret input MIDI files. Files can be uploaded via a companion website that will also live-stream the organ playing music so the instrument and is truly accessible to all.
A Kickstarter for the project raised $1105 for project funding in addition to what StudentRND provided.
Learn
In the course of the project, those involved learned about frequency, the physics of music, pipe organ construction, computer aided design and many other things. Soon, anyone will be able to go to studentrnd.org and upload songs for the organ to play.
