2008 ARTEMIS Orchestra Contest

A NICTA/UNSW team won first place in the ARTEMIS Orchestra competition in Athens in 2008 with a robotically operated, computer-driven clarinet they jointly developed. NICTA’s win was the culmination of eight months of effort.

                                      
The ARTEMIS Orchestra competition challenges contestants to build devices that play real musical instruments, to demonstrate the creative potential of Embedded Systems.  Aimed at higher education and universities, the competition is organised by the association of European actors in embedded systems research and development (ARTEMISIA).

 
The award-winning NICTA/UNSW clarinet was developed by NICTA in partnership with the University of New South Wales. The project team included UNSW Computer Science and Engineering student Mr Mark Sheahan, NICTA Project leader Dr John Judge, and Dr Peter Chubb, who developed the music interpretation software. Mechanical design, construction, and CAD components were provided by UNSW, including Kim Son Dang and Dr Jay Katupitiya from the School of School of Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering and Jean Geoffroy and Paul Santus from the School of Physics. The university’s Professor John Smith and Professor Joe Wolfe respectively contributed electronic and music acoustic expertise. The clarinet will now be used by the UNSW School of Physics’ Acoustics Lab to better understand the gestures of human players. 

View full press release.

Watch footage of the Clarinet in action and the winning team.

Full length video (approx. 7 minutes) - MOV. file (17.8MB), wmv.file (20MB)

Short length video (approx. 1 minute) - wmv.file (3.25MB) or mp4.file (3.5MB)

More information and additional video is available on the UNSW Clarinet Robot website