Guitar Hero Playing Robot

[DonRotolo]

GH Players know that sometimes every button on the screen is the same color, and sometimes the button positions are reversed. In both cases it would be easy to note the cahnge and react accordingly.

Here's a mind exercise to get yu started on building your own:

1. Sensors. You need a sensor that will detect "button" from "no button" on each 'string' of the guitar. Start simple with four sensors - you may need more later.

2. Position. Use the same TV each time. Put some masking tape on the screen across the 'strings' and note exactly where the 'buttons' pass. For example, the left-most button (yellow is it?) always passes this spot a split-second before I'm supposed to play that 'note'. Find those spots...

3. Timing. How much time between when you can reliably detect the 'button' on screen to when you have to press that button and strum the guitar? That's your processing speed, make sure your microprocessor has the power to keep up that speed easily.

4. Actuators: One type to press buttons, another to 'strum'. Solenoids? Are you willing to cut open the guitar and wire up directly? How about a guitar-simulator, that replicates the electronics instead?

5. Software: Simple: When 'button' 1 is 'seen', actuate button 1 on the guitar and hit 'strum'. repeat real fast for all strings at the same time.

Start out easy, but eventually you should be able to make a robot that will play any song, at any level, perfectly every time.

Don

[Molten]

Originally Posted by Don Rotolo

Are you willing to cut open the guitar and wire up directly? How about a guitar-simulator, that replicates the electronics instead?

This may just be me, but this would seem to take the visual appeal of the robot. I mean, yes it would play the music. And the signal that the game receives would be the same. But the observer primarily sees the buttons getting pushed. That is what they watch while the whole thing is working. If you take that away, you kind of lose the appeal.

[jspatz1]

Originally Posted by Molten

This may just be me, but this would seem to take the visual appeal of the robot. I mean, yes it would play the music. And the signal that the game receives would be the same. But the observer primarily sees the buttons getting pushed. That is what they watch while the whole thing is working. If you take that away, you kind of lose the appeal.

I agree Molten. I have thought about the various ways one might do this, and to me it is important to have a camera/sensor watching a screen rather than just intercepting the video signal, and to have a mechanical interface operating the guitar rather than interfacing electrical signals. The whole idea is to have a robot that can match what a human oppenent does, so it would greatly distract from it and be unfair for the robot electronics to be directly tied into the game or video in any way. A system like this is for entertainment, or perhaps fundraising, and all the fun is in watching the robot match what a human can do. An all-electronic system would be simpler, but would not be interesting at all to watch.

[jspatz1]

To answer flyingcrayons orginal question....the system was apparently built by a system integrator (application reseller) in CA called Cyth Systems. I assume as a sales gimick to promote themselves and the NI components they sell. NI apparently has acces to it for their own demos, maybe they gave them the compenents with the understanding they could use it. Anyway, based on what some other individuals have done, it looks like they used way more hardware power than they really needed to do this job, just so they could showcase these particular products. From his description of how it works, I would think it could be done with some much lower price range equipment. Not sure if the cheap Axis camera in the KOP is fast enough, but I'll bet the cRio, labview vision tools, and I/O boards that cam in the KOP could handle this.

[DonRotolo]

I, personally, also would not want to cut into the guitar. I'm too cheap.

An on-screen sensor array is trival compared to a vision system to recognize multiple targets. Walk before running.

Don