Just like humans, every robot comes with its own unique musical stylin'. Well, mostly unique. Except for the ones that are made from all the same parts with identical programming. But this hexapod, Chiara, has certainly found a comfy little niche for itself in the robotic classical piano world, by plonking away at some Beethoven. I love how this video takes us through the thought process of the robot (or whatever you want to call it), from raw vision to blob detection to kinematics. Have a listen:
Chiara itself is an open source educational robot developed by Carnegie Mellon University. It runs a free programming language called Tekkotsu, and this particular demo was put together by Ashwin Iyengar, a high school student. Nicely done, Ashwin, and good choice of music.
[ Chiara ]
[ Tekkotsu ]
Evan Ackerman is a senior editor at IEEE Spectrum. Since 2007, he has written over 6,000 articles on robotics and technology. He has a degree in Martian geology and is excellent at playing bagpipes.