Tech

Watch a ping-pong powered drum machine keep the beat

by Jeremy Mersereau

Ever wanted to be a drummer but didn’t have the cash on hand to buy a kit? Got a few ping-pong balls lying around? Then you’re in luck: A team from the Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design have created a new, experimental instrument called the Haptic Hang Drum, which is powered by firing ping-pong balls in an arc onto sensors to create sound. Check out the instrument in action here:

“How does it work?” I’m glad you asked! From the designers: Motorized sliders act as a pump, which then simulate pressure mounting in the spring, which then fire a ping-pong ball, which then strike one of the eight Hall effect sensors, which then trigger a hang drum sample in music software Ableton Live.

“So hold on, isn’t this just a Rube Goldberg-esque, needlessly complex way of triggering samples? I mean, they couldn’t even use an actual hang drum? Couldn’t you get the same effect, by you know, flinging detritus at random onto a keyboard? And isn’t ‘haptic’ just one of those annoying buzzwords that people just use when they want to sound scientific, when really it just means ‘you control it with your hands’? In a sense, aren’t most instruments ‘haptic’? Is this whole thing just a blatant attempt to go viral with kind of a gussied-up barely-idea, which obviously worked because I’m writing about it right now?” Shooter McGavin: “…No!”

[h/t The Creators Project]