US Engineer Builds Unsettling Machine To Play The Violin

Retired biomechanical engineer Seth Goldstein has earned a degree of late-life notoriety this month after footage emerged of a machine he built himself that can accurately — if indelicately — play the violin.

"RO-BOW", as the machine (or "kinetic sculpture, to use Goldstein's preferred term) is affectionately known, essentially uses electromagnetic actuators to move its robotic fingers and violin bow, with controls tied to a computer program that converts digitally input music (which is created via MIDI controller) from raw note data into voltages that control the actuators, thus causing the violin to recreate whatever notes are being played on the keyboard.

If you don't know what electromagnetic actuators are, well, neither do we, so perhaps it's best if you forget all that technical mumbo-jumbo and just watch a frigging robot playing the violin because holy shit, that exists now and, tragically, it actually sounds way better than most novice violinists.

"I delight in creating kinetic sculpture machines which are novel, aesthetic, and unexpected, and which also can inspire, entertain and demonstrate the power of engineering," Goldstein says on his website.

Other works by Goldstein include Why Knot?, automated fixer of neckties, and Cram Guy, a life-size student-bot at a desk "who is frantically cramming for an exam and then slows down, collapses into a dream state, is awakened by a loud gong, and starts the cramming cycle over again". Jesus, that is bleak.