A Robot That Helps You Play The Recorder @MusicMonday
The recorder may seem like a simple wooden wind instrument, and that’s just what it is. But from that simplicity a skilled musician can coax subtlety and wonderfully varied melodies. Luis Marx is a musician — but he’s also a maker. He brought those two points of view together to build a robot that can assist with playing the recorder. Here’s more from hackaday:
A recorder has eight finger holes, which can be covered or uncovered in various combinations to produce tones. [Luis Marx] therefore used eight solenoids, mounted on a 3D-printed frame, to actuate the finger holes. The basic idea worked, but getting the solenoids to fully cover the holes each time turned out to be a challenge: even a slight misalignment would cause air to leak past the plug and produce a horrible off-key sound.
After a lot of trial and error, [Luis] found foam earplugs to be a pretty good material for emulating human fingertips. He also discovered that relying on the solenoids’ spring tension to keep the holes closed was not reliable; a better solution was to flip the solenoids around and use the much larger force from their powered stroke to create an air-tight seal.
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