1984 Advance Synth Robot

It was made over 25 years ago. WABOT-2 was a robot that was developed by Waseda University in 1984 as an intelligent humanoid keyboard player.



Playing a keyboard instrument was set up as an intelligent task that the WABOT-2 aimed to accomplish, since an artistic activity such as playing a keyboard instrument would require human-like intelligence and dexterity. Therefore the WABOT-2 was defined as a "specialist robot" rather than a versatile robot.

The robot musician WABOT-2 can converse with a person, read a normal musical score with is eye and play tunes of average difficulty on an electronic organ. The WABOT-2 is also able of accompanying a person while he listens to the person singing. The WABOT-2 was the first milestone in developing a "personal robot".

Here is a clip of the robot demonstrating it’s chops at Expo ‘85 in Tsukuba, Japan with a performance of Kitaro’s new age classic “Silk Road.”



Reference: Synthgear.com,Waseda University Humanoid