Are you a musician in need of an extra set of hands? The accompanyBot allows musicians to have an accessible piano accompaniment at any time. Just like a pianist, the accompanyBot can read most standard sheet music and play to a conductor’s ready.
The accompanyBot system consists of a robotic hand structure to play the piano keys, a software application for the user interface, and a microcontroller to coordinate the robot via the app. The UI application permits the insertion of sheet music PNG and PDFs. For sheet music, an optical music recognition component parses the notes into an XML file format. Once the music data transformation is complete, the microcontroller parses the XML file and commands solenoids within the robotic structure to strike the piano keys according to note pitch and duration. Further control is made accessible via the UI for pausing the robot, jumping to a different measure, or changing the overall tempo.