USC Fight Song on Automated Xylophone

An Electrical Engineering 201 project built, wired, and programmed by Jon S., Mark W., and me. (University of South Carolina, Columbia)

Poor video quality.. taken on my phone. Hopefully Jon will post something better up some time soon.

How it works...
25 push-type solenoids wired up to a PLC (programmable logic controller), each with their own key. Solenoids trigger, hitting the end of a mallet, which rotates on its axis and strikes a note.

Programmed in binary (can also be edited in hex, octal, decimal) from sheet music to spreadsheet to program.

Current PLC program limited us to only 255 lines of code (255 beats), limiting us in song length.

Materials:
acrylic, wooden mallets, bolts (axis of mallets), push-type solenoids, 24VDC supply, Allen Bradley Micrologix 1100 PLC, RsLogix 500 (software), switches

There were switches that manipulated song speed (pulse width) and song selection, and there was a real-time pause button.

This took about 4 or 5 solid weeks to plan, design, build, wire, and program. A lot of the time was spent cutting and drilling the acrylic... as well as figuring out ways to prevent some solenoids from 'sticking.'

Other songs: Mario (Main Theme)
Mary had a Little Lamb
Test programs to show capabilities of PLC, solenoids

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• PLC
• automated
• xylophone
• USC
• fight
• song
• gamecocks

[Snarician]

make it do dream theater now.

[justahbustah]

no u

[farlepet]

This is awsome, i'm thinking of doing this with an old PLC i have, but with a paino

[Snarician]

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