It's clear that everyone is looking for a way to game the system these days. The
video game system, that is. In the vein of that
Guitar Hero cheat-mod we saw the other day, four undergraduate students at Texas A&M University have built a Guitar Hero playing robot that can shred with the best of them... no hands required. The system -- dubbed Slashbot -- works as a completely standalone process, using a converter box to translate specific pixel information from the screen intro note presses and strums on the mechanical contraption. On average, the bot is achieving 90 percent accuracy in expert mode, and has yet to be defeated by a human challenger. Next up? It plans to eradicate all human life on Earth, of course! Check the video of Slashbot playing -- what else? --
Cliffs of Dover after the break.
posted Apr 23rd 2008 9:02AM
Through the fire and flames please.
In expert and on hyperspeed 5!!
The servo on the strum bar cannot strum fast enough for Through the Fire and the Flames.
@Kurian
I am assuming you are one of the folks on this project or at least know them...
Have you thought about putting a second solenoid on the other side of the strum bar? It would halve the effort of the strum solenoid and increase the time between firings for each of the two strum solenoids. It would also help the problem of the strum solenoid not recoiling fast enough during rapid sequences as it would be forcibly recalled by the opposing solenoid's firing. I suspect this is the source of many of the missed notes in this song as it seems to miss very quick double notes that are not hammer-ons/pull offs. Installing stronger springs and overvolting the solenoids is probably also a solution but you'd probably have to put heat sinks on them at that point.
it actualy looks like your going to need to buy a faster servo for the strumm thingie
they're solenoids, not servos... just fyi
Ouch!, It sounds craky.
I'd increase the lag slightly by a few milliseconds to give some leniency to slightly late notes.
Holy mother of G*d
Gig 'Em.
Somebody had way too much time on their hands.
"On average, the bot is achieving 90 percent accuracy in expert mode, and has yet to be defeated by a human challenger."
Uh I guess the students suck because I have friends who can constantly get higher than 90% on Expert.
Your friends must have way too much time on their hands...
Why is that? I got five starts on all the career songs on expert (Damn you raining blood) and I'm not some loser. It's just easier when you already know how to play seven real instruments...
Robot vs human ?
Well, have a look at this...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9ao_vOsZkg
@joel
His friends have to much time on their hands?
What about these guys who made 'Slashbot.'
I think they have too much time on their hands.
AGREED! i also have a few friends who can get over 90% on expert. That's precisely how we achieved over 800,000 fans and over 1,000 stars...
Just to clarify...these students aren't just doing this because "they have too much time on their hands." They are engineering majors at Texas A&M. This is their senior design project--required for graduation.
Ya may have a lot of what you want, but no body can't even think how to get something like this to work. What you do, getting over 90% of accu on expert on some rythm game, everybody can. Doing a robot to make this, only a few can, and those few are the one that really matter to humanity, the rest, ..........
In this thread and the previous one about a father modding a Wii guitar hero, I like how people complain that the innovative hackers have "too much time on their hands," but the people who do nothing more than become experts at a video game that teaches no skills are not criticized.
THIS
Surrender your lasagna.
Both groups have too much time on their hands... although the automated Guitar Hero guys might be a bit brighter.
Being a fellow aggie I must go WHOOP!
Considering how much the RIAA has said you can't do with your music, it's amazing they allow you to pretend play it in Guitar Hero at all. I mean, heck, they've said you can't throw it out or back it up.
http://impatientsufferance.com/2008/04/23/more-things-you-cant-do-with-your-music-185/
Why not say you can't have fun with it either.
misguided genius??
People complaining about them having too much time, what if they are in an Engineering class and that is their final project or something for the class. o yea and Gig 'em!
I, for one, welcome our new guitar-hero-playing robotic overlords.
BOO.
Personally, I've always felt that Texas A&M would have some role in the destruction of humanity, and frankly, they're only proving me right.
But can it whammy?
Incredible, if a few college students make a Guitar Hero robot they get the pat on the back. If an engineer father creates one to punk his son it is called a complete waste of time. I think most Engadget readers have serious daddy issues.
When did they get electricity in College Station?
Over in the corner, if you watch the video carefully, you can see about 2 dozen highly caffeinated rodents on their little generator exercise wheels.
College Station is pronounced "Cultural Starvation"
nice use of the NI PXI chassis! Program by paint rocks!!
I have noticed that while I am playing, if I'm strumming too hard or quickly, the strummer may register an extra strum because it moves slightly beyond the middle position. If I make sure to "guide" the strummer back to center instead of letting it return on it's own I have less mis-hits. Slowed me down a bit at first until I learned to strum up and down instead of just "flicking" the strummer.
Why not just send the signals to the 360, rather than doing something so expensive? It'd also 100% it all of the time.
Of course, I know the answer, this looks cool while it does it.
Yeah, but can it play the Aggie War Hymn? I think not.
If necessity is the mother of invention, our needs are so f***ed up...
Necessity may be it's mother. Boredom, however, is Invention's dead beat beer-swilling mildly abusive father.
It can't handle the star power section because all the notes become the same color. I say a human could definitely beat it!
Color is irrelevent.
But can it play Crysis?!?!?!?
Your comment is DOOMed to fail.
@nxtiak
I'm in the same boat as you.
GH3's windows are along the same lines at CS:S head shot hitboxes: XBOX HUGE. Anyone with fairly decent timing and was 4*ing most songs on GH2 could 5* half of GH3 on a first run.
Anyway, if you wanted the bot perfect, program the bot with the notecharts. Then you wouldn't even need to detect anything. You could even set the optimal star power paths. ScoreHero status bot. Granted, it wouldn't be able to do the squeezes without fudging the timing a bit, but for all intensive purposes 100%s with optimal star power is good enough.
@ Alex G
More humiliating to be beaten by something that makes one or two mistakes than by something that never fails :)
Today it's a cute little robot that plays video games. Tomorrow it starts searching for Sarah Connor.
Damn my meaty fingers, its your fault I suck.
lol that Conrad video is old and the kid sucks. Terrible vid. 300,000 is a bad score for Through the Fire and Flames. Check this vid out. #1 kid at the song in the world: http://youtube.com/watch?v=peqio4qn9FM
I'm surprised no one has told that robot to go play a real guitar.
Cool, but how about some real robot guitar. Go see the band Captured By Robots.
http://www.capturedbyrobots.com/gtrbot.htm
What about hammer ons? I couldn't tell from the vid but it seemed to me that the noids were working inefficiently. I assume its just a matter or coding some note priority? Anyway I say bravo!
Did anyone finish the video? Because he got 96% on expert.
I think alot of people are missing the point here. Great job guys! Once it is fine tuned please post another video!
Thank god my boyfriend doesn't read Engadget or he'd try to make a similar robot himself.
BTW does anyone else hate Disturbed with fury, but still keeps on trying to master that damn song?