This arrangement of The Beatles Come Together for a drum kit and three hubophones (yes, hubophones) might be one of the most, er, expensive displays of robotic music on record. Yes, I know, that drummer is no Ringo, but otherwise, it's probably the most heartfelt and moving hubophone version of this song that we've ever heard.
Considering that each HUBO, an advanced humanoid developed at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), will run you between $300,000 and $400,000, you're looking at a $1.5 million-ish production here, which I'm sure well reflects the amount of work that Drexel University's HUBO music programming team Alyssa Batula, David Grunberg, and Matthew Prockup put into these robots. Watch and listen:
So, four HUBOs is good. But what's even better is seven HUBOs. Seven. 'Cause somehow, that's how many Drexel has convinced the National Science Foundation (NSF) to buy:
This is all part of a $20 million Major Research Infrastructure grant awarded by the NSF. Later this year, the robots will be doled out to partner institutions, including MIT, Carnegie Mellon, Virginia Tech, the University of Southern California, Ohio State, Purdue and UPenn, whereupon additional hijinks are virtually guaranteed to ensue.
[ Drexel MET Lab ]
