[EV3] Blu3s Brick plays the Blues

[Aswin]

Introducing my latest robot, Blu3s Brick.

Blu3s Brick is a Robot that plays along with midi music. It does not make the sounds, but its movements are in sync with the Midi music that is played by a synthesizer. It is able to play and sing along with any midi file.

For those who like the technique behind it. Here is a very short explanation.

Midi files do not contain sound like MP3's. instead they contain instructions for electronic instruments like synthesizers. These instructions have the form of "play note x".

On my computer I have a sequencer running that sequences these instructions and sends them both to a synthesizer and this robot. The robot is programmed to react in a appropriate way to the instructions using lejos.

The heart of the robot is an EV3 brick.

Enjoy!

[Rishab N]

Thats some cool work. You should make a dancing robot to go with it

[TechnicHead41]

Very cool ! Love it.... :thumbup:

[legomuppet9]

This is genius, I love it!

[Appie]

Wow! Really impressive and lovely to watch. Love the little details of the tapping foot, the mouth and the EV3 brick hidden in the speaker.

[D3K]

One of the coolest MOCs I've seen in a long time!!

[BusterHaus]

Excellent! Now put him on a street corner with a tip jar and make him earn you cash. Batteries aren't free.

[Jim]

One of the coolest MOCs I've seen in a long time!!

I concur. This is absolutely fantastic!

The way Blu3s moves looks to natural.

Thumbs up

[Eraman]

Awesome!

[PhyBuilder]

Haha even without music this video/MOC made me smile. Great idea, but the realization is even better! You probably had a LOT of fun creating and finetuning this one.

[Fissl]

very clever! I like the gold tooth :D

With my drummer we could make a band. Who will buid the keyboarder?

Edited October 20, 2014 by Fissl

[Lucio Switch]

Very brilliant MOC!! I like the Engl style amp!!

[Zerobricks]

Such a simple yet awesome idea. It came out brillaintly.

[Aswin]

@all

Thanks for all the kind words

very clever! I like the gold tooth :D

With my drummer we could make a band. Who will buid the keyboarder?

Actually I plan to make a band. The software is such that I can assign different bricks to different midi channels. This means that different robots can play different instruments.

I can use some help or inspiration. Do you have any pictures of your drummer?

[kieran]

Very nice build and well coded to work this way, what commands and sent to the brick from the PC is it Bluetooth command by command or is a whole file passed over in some way

[Dapper-D2]

Brilliant! I absolutely this! :thumbup:

[Aswin]

Very nice build and well coded to work this way, what commands and sent to the brick from the PC is it Bluetooth command by command or is a whole file passed over in some way

Here is an image of the system that explains it bit. The midi file is processed by a sequencer. This sequencer sends the individual midi events real time (one by one). The BoR server program distributes the individual events over all the bricks (I call them musicians) that are connected to the system. The midi events are sent to the musicians by wifi, but BT or USB would also work. You can tell the server program which midi channel(s) should be passed on to each musician. The delay is there to delay the audible music. This gives the robot some time to react to the midi events before the music is actually played by the synthesizer.

Everything is written in Java. The sequencer and synthesizer are standard java components. The server and musician are written for this purpose. If you were to build another musician you would need to make your own musician program. But then you would only need to code how to react to the events, The communication stuff is already there.

[Fissl]

Do you have any pictures of your drummer?

Yes i do. Here you can find a picture and also a

.

[Captainowie]

very clever! I like the gold tooth :D

Ha! I didn't even notice that. A nice touch.

I also echo the sentiments of the others here - this is a glorious piece of kit.

Owen.

[Jim]

Frontpaged!

[Mike S]

Great stuff! The foot tapping just completed it nicely!

[Eric The Hand]

Oh man..this is just too awesome!

[Rockbrick]

One the best things I have seen done in lego in a looong loooong time (that isn't a vehicle)

Every home should have one

I think he should pair up with the drummer....

Edited October 23, 2014 by Rockbrick

[m0dulo]

I love the EV3 amp, especially with the LEDs as the glowing valves/tubes. :)

[Skalldyr]

Wow, that is brilliant! I really love the typical Hooker foot tapping.