The Hopkins Robotics Club recently transformed a campus staircase into an octave of piano keys. In only five hours, a group of Robotics Club members wired the Hackerman Hall staircase with a scale from low C to high C. Now, students and faculty unwittingly play music commuting to and from class.
In addition to serving as an entertaining and uplifting presence in Hackerman Hall, the staircase creation also seeks to raise club awareness.
Founded in 2009, The Hopkins Robotics Club boasts approximately 100 members with varying fields of interests. Regardless of major, the club welcomes anyone with a passion for design and robotics.
In an email with The News-Letter, sophomore Jordan Matelsky explained the decision to bring music to Hackerman Hall using robotics. The computer science major wrote the invention’s code alongside fellow group member, Michael Lombardo.
N-L: Why did you choose the sound of piano keys?
JM: The sound of the keys was mostly a knee-jerk decision. We needed something nice-sounding enough that people wouldn’t mind listening to some dissonance, so we picked a piano. Imagine a crowd walking down the stairs — it’s like someone sliding their hand down a keyboard.
The piano sound wasn’t actually the first ‘voice’ we tried; we had a techy synthesizer voice in the beginning, as well. I adjusted the source code to play a minor scale instead of the existing major scale, and I was able to bang out some Daft Punk tunes.
It was neat, and also almost entirely unrecognizable as Daft Punk without the thumping bass. It was still pretty awesome, though.
We also had a configuration to play a pentatonic scale so that multiple people standing on consecutive notes would still produce a pleasing sound. Ultimately we wound up scrapping it in favor of being able to play more common music, but it was an exciting exercise in the flexibility of the technology.
N-L: In The Hub video feature, you’re shown playing various songs using the keys as notes. Do you hope other students will attempt to create melodies using the stairs?
JM: I don’t think you can help it! It’s addictive, trying to create music with such significant restrictions. I stepped on the first step, and I thought, “I wonder if I can play this...” and I was hooked. It struck me as a really novel instrument right away.
From a musical standpoint, it’s like playing a very restrictive instrument; you only have one octave, and you can’t easily get from one note to another distant note without some serious leg-strength which I quite certainly lack. But that makes it all the more fun, because you start thinking, “wait, I could play some Beethoven on this thing!” You can get surprisingly far into Tchaikovsky’s 1st Piano Concerto before you start missing important notes.
N-L: In addition to raising awareness about the Robotics Club, are there any artistic aims underlying your creation?
JM: I don’t think we necessarily had any specific artistic intentions in mind going into this, but if there’s something to be learned, it’s that the true art is in the synthesis. The finished product is exciting, but the actual building process is really something amazing. The JHU Robotics Club has this great innovative atmosphere, and it’s a real treat to be there as ideas become reality.
N-L: Can students expect to find other robotic music installations on campus in the future?
JM: You might say that... I couldn’t possibly comment.
According to Matelsky, The Hopkins Robotics Club “wouldn’t be looking for new members if we didn’t have something exciting planned.” Keep an eye out for this talented bunch’s upcoming endeavors.
Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The News-Letter.