I've been sitting on this one for awhile and I can't tell you how excited I am to tell you about it. Quite possibly the coolest way to way to make weird noises, Marv is a MIDI Actuated Robotic Vibraphone created by Tim O'Keefe, Michael McIntyre, and Brock Roland at the SFSU School of Engineering.

Marv is made up by several large banks of solenoids- both for striking and dampening the keys. Marv is an extremelly well documented robot- the site has extensive technical details as well as tons of photos, links, diagrams, and videos.

I chose the above video- the night of Marv's "birth" (first succesful run) because I love, and can sympathise, with the feeling of the late night in the lab, windows dark, everyone else gone home, anxious and terrified to see if with a single press of a button, your creation will come alive.
 

If'n you're in the SF bay area, I hight suggest checking out this group show bennifiting RoboGames 2010. (Disclaimer: I am in the show, but so are a heck of a lot of other great artists).

Automatic for the people.

Do sentient machines dwell on the existential circuit that leads to the spiritual 404 error?

Does being a machine mean just being a device: literarily, artistically and literally?

Or does everything just boil down to everyone’s deep-seated need to crush all humans and plot eventual total world domination? Find out at Automatic!

November 19, 20, 21, 2009
Exhibit: 5pm-8pm / Beer and wine reception 7pm-12pm on Fri & Sat
@ The lowerDeck Gallery – 2295 3rd Street (below Sundance Coffee in San Francisco)

Robot Paintings and Sculptures from the prodigious talents of: Doctor Popular * Josh Ellingson * I-Wei Huang * Simon Cox * Nils Jawa * Jonathan Foote * Camp Peavy * Alice Koswara * Max Chandler * Eliot K. Daughtry * Adam Davis * Patrick Lake * Phoneticontrol * Mike Hales * Bill Robinson, Liz Mamorsky, Meredith Scheff and many many others!

*”My God, it’s full of robots!”