Robotic prosthesis turns drummer into a three-armed cyborg - Video

Georgia Tech has created a robotic drumming prosthesis with motors that power two drumsticks. 

The first stick is controlled both physically by the musicians' arms and electronically using electromyography (EMG) muscle sensors. 

The other stick "listens" to the music being played and improvises. The robot that can be attached to amputees, allowing its technology to be embedded into humans.

Gil Weinberg

Professor Gil Weinberg has already built a band of robotic musicians in his Georgia Tech lab.

Now he's created a robot that can be attached to amputees, allowing its technology to be embedded into humans.

The robotic drumming prosthesis has motors that power two drumsticks. The first stick is controlled both physically by the musicians' arms and electronically using electromyography (EMG) muscle sensors.

The other stick "listens" to the music being played and improvises.

"The second drumstick has a mind of its own," said Weinberg, founding director of the Georgia Tech Center for Music Technology.

"The drummer essentially becomes a cyborg. It's interesting to see him playing and improvising with part of his arm that he doesn't totally control."

The prosthesis was created for Jason Barnes, a drummer who was electrocuted two years ago and lost his right arm below the elbow.

The Atlanta Institute of Music and Media (AIMM) student built his own prosthetic device shortly after the accident. It wasn't very flexible.

He could bang the drums by moving his elbow up and down, but couldn't control the speed or bounce of the stick without a wrist or fingers.

That's when Weinberg stepped in to create a single-stick device with sensors that responds to Barnes' bicep muscles.

"Now I can flex and send signals to a computer that tightens or loosens the stick and controls the rebound," said Barnes.

Weinberg, who has already built a robotic percussionist and marimba player that use computer algorithms to improvise with human musicians, took the prosthesis a step further. He added the second stick and gave it a "musical brain."

"Jason can pull the robotic stick away from the drum when he wants to be fully in control," says Weinberg. "Or he can allow it to play on its own and be surprised and inspired by his own arm responding to his drumming."

Columbia's Lemur Studio Design develops mine detector in a shoe

Lemur Studio Design based in Bogota, Colombia, has come up with a concept for insoles that won’t just save your instep, but could save your life.

Credit: Lemur Studio Design

A submission to the World Design Impact Prize 2013-2014 competition, SaveOneLife is a wearable mine detector that fits in a shoe and warns the wearer if and where a potentially deadly landmine might lurk nearby.

Credit: Lemur Studio Design

Colombia is not alone in having a major landmine problem but it is one of the worse offenders.

According to the International Campaign to ban Landmines (ICBL), Colombia is the second most mined in the world after Afghanistan, with over 10,000 casualties since 1990, including about 2,000 killed.

Anti-government rebel groups have strewn antipersonnel and antivehicle mines along roads and foot trails, near government bases, in rural areas, around schools, houses, national parks, and indigenous communities’ land.

The problem is made worse by drug gangs using mines to protect their coca farms from intruders.

This widespread, often indiscriminate mining combined with the mountainous jungle terrain of the region make detecting and clearing landmines extremely difficult.

The notoriously dangerous job requires money, special equipment, and expert crews. It’s a long, slow task that even under the best conditions can take decades to complete.

Meanwhile, soldiers, coca eradication teams, farmers, and local people are at daily risk of being maimed or killed.

Credit: Lemur Studio Design

According to the designers, SaveOneLife isn’t a solution to the problem, but more of a stopgap technology to reduce the danger from antipersonnel mines.

It works on the principle of a typical metal detector.

The insole is made of a conductive material and has a planar coil printed on it, which produces an electromagnetic field.

When the wearer walks within two meters (6.5 ft) of a mine containing metal parts, this disrupts the field and is detected by a microprocessor, which is also printed on the insole, as is a radio transmitter.

The transmitter sends a signal to a wristwatch-like readout that sounds an alarm and displays the location of the mine on a small screen.

Iván Pérez

SaveOneLife was designed by Iván Pérez under project leader Lorena Cárdenas.

It’s currently at a conceptual stage due to economic reasons, but is designed to be as realistic as possible with the aim of providing a template for eventually coming up with a practical, life-saving device based on nanotechnology.