Studies, Human Robot Interaction
Safe And Sound
NSF funded project using music to improve safety and fluency in human robot interaction
Shaia and drum+xylophone
Robotic Musician
Shaia
Xylophone playing robot, Shaia, is a low-cost open source robot to teach music
One of our biggest challenges with shimon is transporting it. weighing at 700 pounds between.4 massive boxes, we pay a lot of oversized baggage. Shaia is a robot I built that is more portable, and lower cost in an effort to bring robotic musicianship to the classroom
Right now, Shaia has two arms and plays a three octave xylophone as well as a drum. Shaia can play midi, generate dances, and sing! Shaia also can bob to rhythm and let people move shaias head to program new dances!
We are currently working on developing differnt ways for shaia to teach melodies, including demos, visual feedback, and accompaniments. I recently brought shaia to use as part of a workshop I organized at ICRA 2026 (International Conference for Robotic and Automation). The workshop was about robotics and music, how to design and build interactive systems. Shaia was really good to use as live examples!
Next
Assistive robot
Shimi
Multimodel Robot Used to help people who are deaf and hard of hearing experience music