Imagine a piano that plays itself- not just some basic tunes, but musical performances from any MIDI file. That’s exactly what a creative maker has built: a fully automated piano-playing robot that reads digital music data to play piano keys.
Paul Junkin, a DIY enthusiast, built a fully automated piano-playing robot that can bring any song to life. With a piano sitting in his home for years and no ability to play it, he took on the challenge of creating a machine that could do it for him without making major modifications to the instrument. For the project he used aluminum extrusions that will sit above the piano and can be adjusted for fine tuning. One of the tricky parts was figuring out how to press the keys. and finally he decided on solenoids and after testing several solenoids, he settled for 25-Newton solenoid and ordered 88 of them as one for each key!
This DIY automated piano plays its musical notes with the help of MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface)and Arduino which guides the piano which notes to play and when. Along with that, to make the music sound more natural, PWM (Pulse Width Modulation) is used, to help control the volume, allowing for softer or louder notes, just like a real pianist. After plenty of fine-tuning and troubleshooting, the robot was ready to play anything from Beethoven to Mozart.
This project is a fun fusion of music, engineering, and automation. It showcases how modern technology can bridge creativity and technical skill, proving that you don’t need to be a trained musician to create something extraordinary. Imagine integrating AI-powered learning, dynamic touch controls, or even robotic hands that mimic human playing styles which will bring in more possibilities into this field. Whether or not this inspires others to build their own versions, it’s an exciting example of how DIY projects can push the boundaries of what’s possible.
