The automatic whamola-guitar hybrid.

Nathan Cote, Alexander Recca, and Elijah King

Completed for MU 2301 – Making Music With Machines A25.

The Whamitar is a musical robotics instrument inspired by the Whamola, which is a bass-like instrument played by adjusting the tension in the string to attain different pitches. The Whamitar features a similar tuning mechanism that automatically adjust the pitch of the string using a stepper motor. However, in our final build, the stepper motor did not have enough torque to properly turn the guitar tuning peg. If we had more time to work on our project, we would fix the gear ratio and supply our system with a more powerful motor to ensure sufficient torque. The Whamitar also features a DC motor that spins two guitar picks at a high rate of speed, creating a tremolo effect on the guitar string. Overall, we learned a lot from this project and will be sure to carry our lessons learned into future musical robotics endeavors.

The below images were our initial diagrams entering the project, allowing us to have a strong idea of how to proceed with the design. Please note there are some minor differences between our initial diagrams and the final build.