It is amazing how much robot technology has progressed over the years. Robots make our lives easier by doing things we find hard to do and unlike people, they just do their work without hesitation. There are a variety of things these machines can do, from everyday normal jobs to doing military work. Now, James Cochrane of Toronto reveals the musical powers of his creations with a cover of Marilyn Manson’s The Beautiful People.
Last year, Cochrane released a Youtube video of his robot band The Bit-52’s cover version of B52’s Rock Lobster. In the video’s page, he said that the “guitar, keyboard, cow bell, cymbal and tambourine are all controlled by various types of push/pull solenoinds.” He also said that these solenoids are powered by ULN2803 darlington drivers and “everything is controlled by two PIC16F84A microcontrollers.”
Now, he renamed the band ‘End of Life’, or EOL for short. The robot band is made up of an electric guitar, bass and snare drums, a cello, and a scanner. All of these were fitted with mechanics and were programmed to play the gothic anthem perfectly.
When talking about how he came up with the idea, he said: “Initially I was working on my own version of Mad World and I did complete it however the robot cello didn’t work out because the sound of the solenoids and stepper motor was drowning out the song. So I scrapped the project altogether. One night I was working on the cello and the stepper motor started to jitter almost ripping the cello string and bow apart. As I was jumping over to the power switch I noticed that the jittery sound reminded me of a song. That song turned out to be The Beautiful People by Marilyn Manson.”
“I programmed a small part for the Cello and it sounded great. Who would have ever though to use a cello in that song? Two months later, my video was complete.”
You can watch EOL’s version of Marilyn Manson’s The Beautiful People here.
via: Geeky Gadgets
