It’s one thing to see a robot conduct a band of tablets to perform DJ Flume’s techno hit “More Than You Got,” but it’s something entirely different to witness an elegant claw-like robot pluck a zither with such evocative grace.
Shelly, as the robot is called, sits atop her bench across from Lisa Prout, a veteran zither player and a product engineer working on embedded technologies for Intel’s Intelligent Systems Group, which builds industrial automation technologies or what’s known as the Internet of Things.
“She’s always reliable and 100% repeatable,” said Prout about Shelly.
The Chinese Zither has a history that dates back 2000 years, but many people today may remember the role it played in the famous fight scene in the movie “Kung Fu Hustle.” Its Chinese name, guzheng, literally means “ancient instrument.” It was a preferred instrument in the Chinese courts during the dynasty periods.
Prout, who has played for more than two decades, said that the instrument has evolved over the centuries, and in its current form measures about 6 feet long and has 21 strings.
To play the zither takes great hand skill, finesse and sense for human emotion, so Prout said it was impressive how much the hardware and software designers accomplish in a short time. In the making of Shelly video, the team explains that their intention behind the project was to show how one computer with a quad core microprocessor, rather than using several computers, could be virtualized to run different operating systems, each performing specific, complex instructions that together resulted in precise, real-time movements.
“It would take a human significantly longer just to learn the fundamentals of this instrument, let alone be capable of performing at the level Shelly could play,” said Prout.Subscribe now to Intel on YouTube:
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Robot Plays Traditional Chinese Zither | Intel
