Hardware Meetup Field Trip

Great fun was had on our first Hardware Meetup field trip today. We we started with a look through the proud possessions of an accomplished engineer who is sadly now no longer with us. There was some amazing stuff there at very reasonable prices. I’ve got no particular need for a “CRT Tester/Rejuvenator” although I was tempted, particularly as it has a setting marked “Super Rejuvenate”.

I picked up some soldering hardware and everyone else found something interesting. Then it was back into the cars and over to Ross’s (is that the right number of sses?) place for a look at his latest piano hardware.

Player Piano plus mechanism

This manual piano has been made automatic by adding a mechanism underneath the keys that pushes up the back of the key and plays a note. The piano also has keyboard lights that can show which keys are playing, or help teach you keyboard skills.

Driving the notes

These are the solenoids which drive the keys from underneath the piano.

The two pianos are linked together

Baby Grand

Ross and his team have been making pianos that play themselves for a while now. They’ve branched out into keyboard sensing too, so that they can change any piano into a MIDI device by simply laying a sensor bar across the top of the keys. Tunes played on the otherwise unmodified baby grand are duplicated on the receiving piano.

Finally we headed for dinner at the Helal Tandoori in Louth which was excellent. After that it was time to head home. The next hardware meetup will be on the 5th of February, back in Hull Makerspace.