Trumpet Playing Robots
by Adrian Horn

Japanese Auto manufacturer Toyota announced their new 'Partner Robots' in March 2004. Toyota has given its partner robots human characteristics, such as being agile, warm and kind and also intelligent enough to skillfully operate a variety of devices in the areas of personal assistance, care for the elderly, manufacturing, and mobility. As each area requires a special set of skills, Toyota is promoting the development of three different types of partner robots (walking, rolling, and mountable), each with its own areas of expertise.

Toyota developed artificial lips for these robots that move with the same finesse as human lips, which, together with robots' hands, enables the robots to play trumpets like humans do.

Expect Toyota to showcase the robots at the Toyota Group Pavilion at the Expo 2005, Aichi, Japan.

This is not the first 'robot' that has been built that is able to play the trumpet, Friedrich Kaufmann (1785-1866) built what is believed to be the first in 1810. The trumpeter, housed in the Deutsches Museum, achieved renown more from its commanding figure than due to the actual notes it produced. Only the longest surviving workers in the museum can remember having heard this mechanical trumpeter play any notes, and they are said to have sounded rather pitiful. The leather of the bellows has become brittle, causing them to leak. The restoration, which is not actually that simple, has been announced numerous times, but has never got any further than that.

More information about Kaufman's mechanical trumpeter can be found on the Deutsches Museum website here.