Musical Robotics Practicum – B Term 2021

By: Raymond Carter, Te Lu, Timothy Rinaldi, & Zebang Zhang

The goal of the Next-Gen VCA Percussion project is to design and build a novel percussion actuator with a higher precision than currently known other actuators such as variable impedance, pneumatic, soft robotic variable stiffness, and piezoelectric actuators.

The team was able to design, create, and test a 3D printed voice coil actuator in the WPI course Musical Machines by Prof. Scott Barton. The actuator was iterated multiple times to improve performance and efficiencies in the system. Once the actuator was perfected, the team implemented it into the Next-Gen percussion system to create a quick mount, sliding machine that can be clipped to various drums. The team choose to mount two identical systems to a low tom and a snare drum to showcase it’s versatility.

Watch the Teaser here:

Watch the Performance here: