McBlare: A Robotic Bagpipe Player

I know, I know... I have been a horrible blogger as of late ~ zero updates, but loads of fun! In another post, I will tell you about all our recent adventures to far away magical kingdoms, full of bright lights and wonder!!!

BUT

Before that, I had to share the story of McBlare: The Robotic Bagpipe Player!

How cool is that!?!

CLICK HERE FOR THE STORY




The story and construction go back to 2004, so it is not a new "breaking" story or bleeding edge... but have you heard of a robotic bagpiper recently... or for that matter, ever? I sure haven't! Below is the first paragraph directly quoted from the web-site. Enjoy!

"McBlare" is a robotic bagpipe player. It plays an ordinary set of bagpipes using an air compressor to provide air and electro-magnetic devices to power the "fingers" that open and close tone holes that determine the musical pitch. McBlare is controlled by a computer that has many traditional bagpipe tunes in its memory. McBlare can also add authentic sounding ornaments to simple melodies entered through a piano-like keyboard and play the result on the bagpipes.

McBlare was constructed by the Robotics Institute for its 25th Anniversary in 2004. The team that built McBlare includes Ben Brown, Garth Zeglin, and Roger Dannenberg.