Musical Robotics – HU 3910 12/11/2020
By Kyle Mikolajczyk, Ben Draper, Daniel Santamaria Hopkins, Tom Nurse, and Professor Scott Barton
Description
The goal of the project was to utilize Spiropyran, a color changing silicone-like polymer developed in collaboration with MIT and Duke University. To achieve this, we developed a string instrument that executes an autonomous tuning sequence and uses an actuated harpsichord plectrum to play specific notes. The Spiropyran polymer was incorporated into the anchor point, sandwiched between two plates, so that the stress-induced color changing property could be activated as the string tightens or loosens to play different notes.