Solenoid Symphony

This maker wired up a slew of solenoids, electro-magnetic switches, so that when they're switched on they tap a variety of metal things, like a window frame or a coffee can. A computer controls the triggering sequence resulting in a wonderfully percussive solenoid symphony.
Solenoid Symphony (LiveLeak, thanks Mark Pescovitz!)

[#1 posted by Not a Doktor , September 29, 2008 9:17 AM]

now what kind of music is that? Industrial? XD

[#2 posted by Dr.Arthur , September 29, 2008 9:22 AM]

Just another reason Linux rocks.

[#3 posted by Anonymous , September 29, 2008 9:49 AM]

This project was made by Roman Haefeli of Zurich. He did a semester with us in our media class at the university of Ottawa.

I just think credit is due. Roman has gone viral!

[#4 posted by ivan256 , September 29, 2008 10:41 AM]

Two things:

#1 - Awesome.

#2 - If I were his neighbor, and he was tapping on the steam pipes like that, I'd kill him. Slowly, and with a dull knife.

[#5 posted by salimfadhley , September 29, 2008 12:17 PM]

Not so long a friend of mine built an instrument out of an old dot-matrix print-head. His experiment is recorded here:

http://podcasts.resonancefm.com/archives/435

Sal

[#6 posted by A New Challenger , September 29, 2008 1:36 PM]

It's like a smaller scale version of David Byrne's Playing The Building.

Now I want to rig a few above piano keys.

[#7 posted by David Carroll , September 30, 2008 4:20 AM]

Ivan256 (#4)

Yes I would kill him too but I would do it by taping all those solenoids to his head.

I notice he is using an Arduino micro-controller to do this. I have one on order, but am going to use mine to control my Canon DSLR shutter. Way cheaper and more "maker fun" than using EOS Utility and a laptop.

P.S. Are you any relation to Ivan128? I bet you get that a lot huh? ;{)