RoombaMidi: Roomba as Musical Instrument
[originally published 3 May 2006 on todbot]
[Note: an updated version of this program is available, called RoombaMidi2]
The Roomba has a piezo beeper that can play tunes. You’ve heard it.
And its motors make noise. Why not put them under MIDI control?
So here is RoombaMidi: a Mac OS X application that creates a virtual MIDI instrument for use by any Mac OS X MIDI sequencer, like Ableton Live, Logic, and so on.
If you don’t have a sequencer or just want to play with this quickly, grab the awesome and free app MidiKeys. It’s a little virtual MIDI keyboard.
RoombaMidi has the following features:
– provides GUI interface to controlling Roomba (MIDI not required)
– acts as normal MIDI interface to any MIDI application
– supports up to 16 Roombas, one per MIDI channel.
– responds to MIDI notes 32-127 as tones on Roomba beeper,
– MIDI notes 32-127 play corresponding pitch, velocity is duration in 1/64ths-second increments
– MIDI note 24 turns vacuum motor on-n-off for bass drum fun
– MIDI note 25 blinks the LEDs, velocity is color of Power LED
– MIDI note 28 & 29 spins left or right, velocity is speed of spin
– can act as general multi-Roomba test system
– written in Java, but acts like Mac OS X application
To download:
RoombaMidi-0.9.zip
RoombaMidi-0.93-Panther.zip, for Mac OS X 10.3, aka Panther
And if you really want to look at the source…
Here’s what RoombaMidi looks like:
The about page:
Here’s one example use:
Other recorded compositions are forthcoming….
(as always thanks to MikeK for helping with this)
10 comments
How About Windows?
Are there any software?
If you want your roomba to play pre-made midi google MIGHTY MIDI you just download a midi file then select it, then input set as roombamidi and your good to go!
Hi there… I could find your email from anywhere, but I think that you’re the one who can answer to my question;
Is there any Roomba vacuum robot model, which allows me to change sound effects to something else, like R2D2 for example? (Or near R2D2 with midi sequences)
thanks
Hi Lanttu,
Not really. You can make simple beeps as shown above, but you can’t make the sliding tones, squirts, and grunts that R2D2 does.
You idea of approximating R2D2 noises with MIDI beeps is intriguing. I bet you could get kind of close doing it that way, but it still would have the discrete-ness to it of the notes.
It crashes when I try to open it!
You should create a RoombaMidi where you have the GUI but you can also send your own commands (Via text) inside the application to the roomba!
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