Applications and implications

Week 16 - Documentation

This week we are working in our final project. The assingment is answering some questions related to the project and how we are going to make it.

Questions related to the final project

• What will it do?

R= The project consists of a pair of robotic hands that will play a piano keyboard.

• Who's done what beforehand?

1. There have been a few projects involving robotics and pianos. One of the first examples is TeoTronico. His first appearance is from 2007, it was designed by Mateo Suzzi and made by this company Teotronica. It has 53 actuated fingers to play the piano.

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2. In 2018, a research article was published in Science Robotics referring to a soft skeleton hand for piano playing.

3. In 2020, Étienne Allaire created a Piano-playing robot. It is made of 10 solenoids mounted on a wooden frame controlled by a raspberry pi3.

4. In January 2023, a lab in China focused on AI development created a Piano-playing robot.

• What will you design?

R= I will design a set of robotic hands, including the electronic circuits and programming.

• What materials and components will be used?

R= The material I will use for the construction of the hands are plywood and PLA. The electronic components include servomotors, cables, pins, and a copper PCB board. As well, I'm going to use two xiao esp32c3 microcontrollers.

• Where will they come from?

R= The plywood will come from a local hardware store. The PLA filament and electronic components will come from an electronic local store. The microcontrollers will be brought through Amazon.

• How much will they cost?

• What parts and systems will be made?

R= The hands, fingers, and moving system will be made.

• What processes will be used?

R= I will use 3d printing and computer controlled cutting to build the hands and fingers. For the electronic circuits I will be using electronic design and production. Additionally, I'll be using embedded programming and network and communications to control the hands.

• What questions need to be answered?

o How can I integrate five servos in a hand size container to move the fingers?

o Will the hands move in an XY configuration, or will they be static?

o Should the communication protocol be serial or Bluetooth?

• How will it be evaluated?

R= The project will be evaluated if it can play a piano song. At the moments the goal song is Ode to Joy.