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mdc4115
01-20-2009, 12:23 AM
Well i thought it would be a good time to post this as its a little over 50% complete.

i have a ton of images i have taken over the time of the build.

one day i thought it would be cool to make a guitar hero robot like you see on youtube and such. but ours would be a bit different, as i have not seen one that doesn't have any mechanical parts. We just basically extended the wires to the outside of the guitar and then to a board(which is incomplete atm) then it will run to a computer's parallel port. how the bot will see the notes is through a capture card or a camera.

picture time, i will update images as more of the project is completed.

the inside before the modification
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3265/3211398207_f81c06164d_b.jpg

The board that contains the PS button and Directional keys, also has the leads for the fret buttons
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3473/3212245944_385c40bd8b_b.jpg

another
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3118/3211399011_4e95c84720_b.jpg

The board that has the strum buttons, i used the ground on this board because it was easier to solder too. Also has the select and start button leads on it.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3420/3211399119_9191842cf3_b.jpg

The Start and Select board.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3426/3211399221_fcfe8472a1_b.jpg

fret buttons soldered in.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3416/3211399671_361e02833c_b.jpg

the strum button area soldered.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3099/3211400179_21461ab3db_b.jpg

all soldered in.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3487/3211399525_28a9d9dfa8_b.jpg

parallel port mounted into the guitar, used lots of hot glue and a little bit of gorilla glue.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3455/3211399999_07b3cced34_b.jpg

A little preview of the app which my friend is writing. you draw 4 lines around the highway and it figures out where the note lines are, thats all i know about it so far, as i am a beginner when it comes to programming.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3517/3211404357_fccb1e2cbe_o.png

once i finish the circuit design in photoshop or multisim i will post a pic. i will be doing toner transfer to make a custom pcb for it.

we found a college student who did the same project as us. we have the documentation but we are gonna have to modify the design a little. he just used breadboards and we are going to make it more professional by making a custom pcb for it. and it the wiring diagram he made there are only 6 ICs, we are going to use 7 because we are going to make it do star power automatically.

here is a pic of the wiring diagram.(this pic was from the student's papers so where it says PS2 controller it will be my guitar hero guitar for PS3)
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3360/3218861616_f4414a313b_o.png

here is a pic of the breadboard with 3 ICs with the grounds connected, more pics of the breadboard coming soon probably thursday when i receive the other breadboard from UPS.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3425/3227762904_4b8e8b9d13_b.jpg

instead of using 6 ICs like the original designer we will be using 4, and we will be using one more button than the original designer. here is our design
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3083/3226910269_692f9d558d_o.gif
Mr. Hasselhoff
01-20-2009, 12:40 AM
The hardest part about this project is the image processing, but yeah you guys have quite a big done, nice job.

What console is this for?
Edit:
How are you incorporating the capture card into your program? Are you using the software that came with it DLL's? Or? That's what I'm really curious about.
mdc4115
01-20-2009, 01:11 AM
The hardest part about this project is the image processing, but yeah you guys have quite a big done, nice job.

What console is this for?
Edit:
How are you incorporating the capture card into your program? Are you using the software that came with it DLL's? Or? That's what I'm really curious about.


this is for the PS3 but it wouldn't matter what console you use.

we are using OpenCV for the video stuff. i'm not totally sure how its gonna work out on the computer side. this project isn't even in my area of study so its pretty exciting for me.

we are talking about open sourcing the software, and me might incorporate a rockband version too. but that will be much later.
Cobalt
01-20-2009, 01:26 AM
Looks really complicated and interesting, glad I'm not EE :).
SolidSnake
01-20-2009, 02:34 AM
Looks really complicated and interesting, glad I'm not EE :).
you can't spell geek without ee.
Nice work on that, looks cool.
Jack
01-20-2009, 07:40 AM
coulda done a better job when putting on the glue etc, and now how are you going to get the guitar open again with all that glue?
Brandon
01-20-2009, 08:46 AM
Looks awesome!
mdc4115
01-20-2009, 03:58 PM
coulda done a better job when putting on the glue etc, and now how are you going to get the guitar open again with all that glue?

i didn't glue the guitar shut. lol. i just glued the port to one of the halves of the guitar. i'm not that dumb. :P
MPLS*allday
01-20-2009, 05:24 PM
I'm disappointed. I pictured some hotwired manikin playing the guitar hero guitar :(
mdc4115
01-20-2009, 10:37 PM
I'm disappointed. I pictured some hotwired manikin playing the guitar hero guitar :(

maybe in the next Version
MPLS*allday
01-22-2009, 02:39 PM
that's the kind of optimism I like to see
Mr. Hasselhoff
01-22-2009, 03:03 PM
How are you going to interface your program with the microprocessor? Are you going to use a serial port?
mdc4115
01-22-2009, 03:07 PM
How are you going to interface your program with the microprocessor? Are you going to use a serial port?
we are using a parallel port.

updated the first post with the wiring diagram.
Mr. Hasselhoff
01-22-2009, 07:46 PM
Nice, thanks for the circuit diagram. Where did you get the 74LS240 chips?
Edit:
Is the c++ source code going to be open source?
mdc4115
01-22-2009, 08:12 PM
Nice, thanks for the circuit diagram. Where did you get the 74LS240 chips?
Edit:
Is the c++ source code going to be open source?

you can get the chip online at various places but we got ours at goldmine-elec.com (http://goldmine-elec.com). i think we will be giving out the code.
Mr. Hasselhoff
01-22-2009, 08:13 PM
Nice, thanks for the circuit diagram. Where did you get the 74LS240 chips?
Edit:
Is the c++ source code going to be open source?

you can get the chip online at various places but we got ours at goldmine-elec.com (http://goldmine-elec.com). i think we will be giving out the code.
That would be awesome, I would really try to do this myself.
mdc4115
01-25-2009, 09:32 PM
updated post with some breadboard photos and the circuit we are using
DaDominator
01-28-2009, 10:01 PM
what a pointless project..i'm sorry....but srsly...make something useful
mdc4115
01-29-2009, 06:12 PM
what a pointless project..i'm sorry....but srsly...make something useful

don't rain on my parade or i will flood yours
Mr. Hasselhoff
01-29-2009, 06:19 PM
what a pointless project..i'm sorry....but srsly...make something useful
Not pointless at all... You learn digital logic, and how to learn & process signals. This also integrates with something really fun that a lot of people play with (Guitar Hero) and this would certainly impress your friends.
DaDominator
02-05-2009, 02:14 AM
Or make them think your a social reject?

I'm just playing with ya
WhiteFalcon
02-05-2009, 09:31 AM
Awesome Idea, and well done so far, I hope you guys can end this successfully (:

But well done, and it is a nice project!
mdc4115
02-12-2009, 01:22 PM
This weekend we are going to work a lot on it and maybe i will make a video of it in action.
Epic Beast
03-07-2009, 05:16 PM
If i send my guitar hero 3 guitar out to you would you be able to do this bot mod to it for xbox360 ill pay you to do it and ill pay for the mods
mdc4115
03-07-2009, 05:50 PM
If i send my guitar hero 3 guitar out to you would you be able to do this bot mod to it for xbox360 ill pay you to do it and ill pay for the mods

doubt it. i'm just doing this project for fun. try it yourself, it really isn't that hard to do.
Epic Beast
03-07-2009, 07:12 PM
if i ship out my guitar hero guitar would you be able to do this for me? ill pay for all the mods and ill pay you to do it.. write back
mdc4115
03-07-2009, 08:15 PM
no i don't think i want to do that. you'd be S.O.L. anyway since we haven't tested the software my friend wrote yet. and i might not even give that out to people.
mdc4115
05-12-2009, 01:45 PM
ok now that it's summer, we have more time to work on the bot. right now we have the chips laid out and we are testing the circuit with LEDs. With the very basic app my friend wrote we can turn off and on the lights. I even unplugged one of the lights and plugged it into the guitar and it worked. So we just need to fix the program up a bit and start writing the video code.
Mr. Hasselhoff
05-12-2009, 02:01 PM
Nice, just keep us updated bro!
mdc4115
05-12-2009, 08:18 PM
little sneak peak of what we got going on.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIezC7Z_4gE&fmt=22

here is a diagram of a chip with a single connection to the guitar.
http://i41.tinypic.com/o9gzfq.jpg
here is the same chip but with two connections to the guitar.
http://i40.tinypic.com/e0o80n.jpg

UPDATED
s_8ball
05-12-2009, 08:44 PM
I saw a gh3 led thing very similar to yours on engadget a couple days ago.
mdc4115
05-13-2009, 01:46 PM
updated video post.
mdc4115
06-09-2010, 12:49 PM
well here's a bump.

a friend and i are working on this project again, we are using an arduino, relays, and photoresistors. right now we have it turning on and off lights depending on the light it sees. just have to fine-tune it and it should be playing songs soon enough. no new pictures yet but i will take some when i go work on the project again.
Djzzero
06-10-2010, 12:57 AM
Very nice, glad to see you guys working on it still.