Prototype 1 - Rock n' Roll novices

Summary

Before our first prototype could be built, a solid mechanical foundation for the project idea needed to be developed. After deciding that the robot should play Misirlou, the design was separated into two parts: the guitar fretting and the percussion. The basic requirements for a guitar consist of tuned strings, a fretboard with frets, and a method of acoustic resonance. In our case, we plan on using an electric guitar pickup connected to an amplifier to have the sound be clear. The percussion was divided into a tom, a snare, and a hi-hat.

The early design for the first prototype consisted of a "music board" where half of the board was taken up by a custom fretboard, and the other half was devoted to the percussion section. Luckily, all of the notes of Misirlou could be played on one string, which simplifies actuation of the fretting. Some early concept ideas consisted of individual servos for each note pushing down on a dedicated fret, all arduino controlled. This would be scrapped as servos would be too costly and would not be nearly as cool as a single motor controlling all of the fretting. A single-motor actuation idea involved a lead screw concept, where a motor driving a lead screw would actuate a cylinder that would roll across the fretboard to hit each note. The downside of this idea would be that the rolling would make a sliding noise that would be difficult to mute going between each note. Also, the motor would have to go incredibly fast and have a lot of torque.

The first prototype was designed with the 3d software package Rhino:

The colored cams would actuate "switches" which are clothespins attached to steel cables. The cables would then pull on the riveted aluminum levers to fret the string. This would be controlled by a single motor. A bunch of guitar picks would be adhered to a wooden wheel that spins at a constant rate to serve for picking the string. This pickwheel is attached to another motor. This motor would also rotate the percussion shaft via pulley or chain. The percussion shaft would have pegged wheels to actuate levers to hit drums.

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