Pretty cool! FWIW, this is a glockenspiel or bells (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glockenspiel" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glockenspiel</a>), not a xylophone (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xylophone" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xylophone</a>).
Very cool project! But I would dispute this:<p>> <i>buying 24 Solenoids is quite expensive</i><p>They're about $1-2 apiece on Aliexpress; I doubt making your own can cost much less?<p>In my experience, making one solenoid is fun just to see how it works (and how simple it is, really); but making more than one is a little painful and not fun.
Pat Metheny made an album called Orchestrion using an entire orchestra/band of real instruments played by solenoids over MIDI. Great music. (If you like Pat Metheny.)<p>It was an insane project. He even took it on tour.<p>The actual build was by Eric Singer and his team.<p><a href="https://www.wired.com/2010/01/orchestrion/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.wired.com/2010/01/orchestrion/</a>
I have a full octave of organ pipes, and I've always dreamed of making an instrument out of it. I've just never figured out how to make the electrically-actuated valves.
Related: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1W81jQN__88">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1W81jQN__88</a><p>The artist is Grandbrothers and one of them is a jazz pianist and the other one is a roboticist. The latter sets up systems to control solenoids striking the strings and body of a grand piano while the former plays on the keys. It's a duet between human and machine.
The Yamaha Disklavier is a player piano that uses a similar solenoid actuation technique: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disklavier" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disklavier</a>
This is something I've dreamed about doing in one form or another since I was a teenager almost 30 years ago.<p>But the best thing about this story is the video "Without the Xylophone" - a terrifying robotic bed of nails.
would it be possible to induce the vibration of the metal piece (assuming it's magnetic) without nails?<p>using very rapid magnetic oscillations (like a speaker??)?<p>I think the electronics would be different, but is it possible?