How to make a RockBand Guitar playing Robot!

For my first instructable...

What can I say, I love to drum away on the rockband set but it's rare that I have someone to play with me; maybe I need more friends, but out of my seemingly lonely life(jk) comes a pretty cool intractable. I have designed a robot that plays the Rockband guitar for me and I'm sure it would also play Guitar Hero. When I got the idea I had no idea if I could do it or how it could be done. I literally spent the entire contest duration learning and working toward this instructable. I made this instructable because I hope many others build this project and learn from and enjoy it as much as I have.

I have divided this instructable into two construction parts and a final closing.

1. Constructing the mechanical parts
2. Constructing the electrical parts and combining the two

Let's get started!

Quick preview:

Step 1 Items you will need...

Materials:
1/8 dowel rod for axels, metal works best
4 x 6 Base for project, wood or plastic (I used plastic as show in pic with holes drilled)
12V DC adaptor (any old DC adapter will work, just cut the cord to connect it)
Balsa wood for arms and pillars 3/8 x 3/8 x 36 (1.00 at any craft store)
Small screws
Small springs (5.00 at Walmart get a spring assortment) (Quantity 3-5)
A small PC Board (2.00 at RadioShack I used a 276-150) (Quantity 3-5)
12V Solenoids (2.99 ea at goldmine-elec.com  part num: G16829) (Quantity 3-5)
20K Ohm potentiometers (10 for 2.00 at goldmine-elec.com- part num: G13736) (Quantity 3-5)
NPN Transistors for switching applications (10 for 2.00 at RadioShack) (Quantity 6-10)
741 Op Amp Integrated Circuits (99 Cents at RadioShack) (Quantity 3-5)
1k Ohm Resistors (1.00 or a pack of a bunch at RadioShack) (Quantity 3-5)
CDS cells ( 2.19 for an assortment at RadioShack) (Quantity 3-5)
Jumper wires if you are building a prototype circuit

The number of electrical components you will need depend on how many color notes you want your robot to play. I strongly suggest starting with 3 and working your way up once you have been successful.

Tools:
Solder less Breadboard(optional only if you want to build a prototype circuit first, I recommend it)
Phillips screwdriver
Drill w/ drill bits
Saw if you need to cut a 4 x 6 base for your project(you can probably use balsa wood to simplify)
Pliers
Razor Knife
Tape measure

You will also need your tv, rockband 2 game, xbox 360, and rockband guitar.
You will notice that I actually used my projection screed as I don't have a tv, it will be much, much easier to do on a tv.

Comments

[carrotman42]

DUDE, THATS ONE MORE STEP TO MAKING GOOD ROBOT USSES!!!!! *plays air guiter solo*

[LoneWolf]

Haha, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure?

[carrotman42]

Bogus Journey but Bill and Ted :D

[LoneWolf]

LOL :D

[trunkmonkey4345]

this is so cool i wish i was as good at this type of thing as you

[Zachariah]

I would think Mr. Roboto would be a good tribute, but donno if thats on rockband

[GMa]

Really neat ! BTW, have you tried Styx's Too much time on my hands ?

[kendallickes]

Styx's?

[carrotman42]

Anything belong to the band named Styx

[khjui]

Doesn't really look like it works very well :-/

[kendallickes]

what makes you say that? it worked perfectly!

[khjui]

It missed quite a lot of notes, and was pretty slow, nice work though!

[kendallickes]

except it didn't miss a single note and it looks slow because I taped it with a digital camera that came over on the mayflower, not a real camcorder. In the video the system is only playing the green key because its a simple 1 circuit version, you have to build 3-5 to make it play all of the notes depending on the difficulty lvl. you would probably know that if you read the intro to the video or the content in the Instructable. thanks for the response and the opportunity to clear that up.

[lobo_pal]

The pilgrims had very good cameras for their time period, now there ipods were truly appalling. 12ft tall and could only hold 15 songs.

[joetcochran]

Nicely done! I'd love to see an example of it running on expert mode with all 4 buttons. Very cool

[gogo4244]

hopefully you noticed that in the video it is only supposed to play the green key...

[Robot Lover]

this is sick dude

[mman1506]

i realy like it but um just wondering how it plays .do you put 6 (or how many notes there are) photocell on the tv . maybye you could add a step explaining in the instructable, 5* for the great build

[kendallickes]

Yes, it requires you to build one electrical circuit for each note you want to play, 3 for easy 4 for medium and hard and 5 for expert. I mentioned this several time in the instructable. I’m happy to elaborate if needed.

[alex-sharetskiy]

awesome!

[Javin007]

Got my vote and 5* for the simplicity of the build.

[kendallickes]

Thanks :P tell your buddies!

[foxtrot4697]

woah... thas pretty cool

[kendallickes]

vote ;)

[foxtrot4697]

oo yeah almost forgot

[fearme36]

wow. that is really cool. It would be cool to have a whole band of robots playing. Btw i'm getting you a video camera for your birthday lol jk.

[kendallickes]

don't forget to vote if you like it!