by David Geer
Contact the author at geercom@windstream.net
Titan, Baddest Guitar Hero
Playing Humanoid On The Planet
A high school robotics
team is tasked to solve
complex programming
and design problems in
robotics to achieve a
worthwhile goal for
their age group in
popular culture. Their
resolution: a humanoid
robot that effectively
competes in a
significantly high
percentile in the Guitar
Hero video game,
defeating most
The complete Titan Guitar Hero playing robot system with speaker system, television,
web camera, DVD media player, the robot with laptop head, hand actuators, and guitar.
opponents.
Titan just may be the most “legit” (i.e., coolest) non-commercial robot rocking the Internet today. This
music-savvy mechatron has the licks to rock expert level on
Guitar Hero, playing songs with the difficulty of Iron
Maiden’s “The number of the Beast” or Eric Johnson’s
“Cliffs of Dover.”
Decked out with a laptop head, black PVC construction,
and brand name chest plate, Titan — named for the
mascot of Lee’s Summit West High School which produced
the robot’s creators — was inspired by another Guitar
Hero robot that the high school team discovered in an
exhibit.