Fake, but cool point about process variability
OK it’s fake, but I didn’t know that at first because I’m just gullible that way. I was forwarded this video of a machine apparently created in collaboration by the Robert M. Trammel Music Conservatory and the Sharon Wick School of Engineering at the University of Iowa.
Yes, yes, yes it’s fake. But here’s the cool thing, and the thing that made me decide to post here. While watching the video (I hope you saw it before you knew it was fake, it’s pretty neato. Neato as a fake, too.) I kept thinking about (you guessed it!) process variability! Yay!
This machine spits balls out of various holes that bounce against strings and drum heads with perfectly choreographed timing in order to make music. The balls shoot out of distinctly non-precision holes (should have been my first indication of the animation) that fly through the air to exactly the right spot.
So (geek alert) I found myself wondering how the “output holes” could have possibly been engineered to shoot the balls exactly to the spot on the drum, vibraphone, or string in the right order! Then (HUGE geek alert) I started thinking about all the variables that would have to be managed:
- Ball size
- Ball weight
- “Instrument” position
- “waterfall” impact of tiny timing variability on the music
- Air temperature
- Wind/moving air
- output/input/output (it appears the balls cycle through the machine)
- Wear and tear on the balls
This is all I came up with but I’m sure engineers could come up with a truly scary list.
OK, here’s the Metrics Geek part. Assuming, as I do, that the balls shoot out of the output hole with some variability (minute perhaps, but still variable) and that the data set of the trajectory and landing point of each ball would display as a normal distribution. In order for each ball to actually hit its target in the right spot and on time, the data set would have to be ridiculously closely clustered around the mean (very little variability) to a point where realistically it’s probably not possible.
OK enough. It’s just a cool video and it’s nice to imagine that we can engineer music that way.
~Geek~
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