Michael is a 26-year old PhD candidate in Aerospace Engineering at Georgia Tech, and also an amateur musician. He’s set the geek radar off the charts with this little piece of midi-to-machine musical creation.

Using Arduino, an open-source electronics prototyping platform based on easy-to-use hardware and software, he’s made a midi to stepper motor interface.

He says:

The sound you’re hearing is coming entirely from the motors. The motors are screwed into some pieces of aluminum from an old project to help them resonate…. Eventually I’ll be able to plug in a keyboard and play the motors as though I were playing piano.

Here it is playing the Mario Theme:

Michael ripped the motors out of a MIDI Robot that he built in 2008 that plays metal slide whistles via a MIDI input. Check it out here:

• Now that’s what I call MIDI!
• Audio to MIDI madness
• Beatfly: The MIDI flying blimp
• The Humanthesizer: Bikini-clad midi controller