Imperial March on Lego motors

Lego motor DUO plays Star Wars: The Imperial March. Enjoy!

Bass: Lego Buggy motor (5292c01)
Baritone: Lego 9V Heavy Mini-Motor (71427c01)

The music is generated with PWM signals of varying frequencies. The same thing that causes the annoying whining noise you may have noticed with Lego Rechargeable Battery Box, SBrick and BuWizz. Guitar Pro tab, Raspberry Pi and Python code needed. Read more in my blog:

[Alphaghosty]

Imagine putting the grey one in a Lego r2d2 and have have it talk for him would be amazing 😊

[danielwalker]

This is exactly how Floppotron started. Please do more.

[tidmouthmilk]

Never thought I'd see a LEGO version of hard drives playing music but here we are I guess. 👏

[SenatorJesus]

I've seen this before. In ten years we'll have the LEGOTRON 3.0 playing an entire symphony orchestra with LEGO parts

[fonesrphunny]

Okay, hear me out:
- Double or tripple the motors. Their response will be slightly different, creating an unison/chorus effect.
- Keep everything on a piece of wood as resonance body.
- Get hold of a "contact microphone" (probably not the right term for it) to pick up the piece of wood directly
- Make multiple recordings, with the motors and mic being in different positions.

Since you're sending "notes" from an external app, the timing should be 99% reproducible. Mixing the different tracks would give it some "volume" (not in the sense of loudness, but broadness ... if that makes any sense)

[mbcommandnerd]

THAT’S SO COOL!!! You need to make more songs using LEGO motors, because somehow, they actually sound good!!!

[highdriver]

When i was in engineering school we had a water facility simulator, essentially just two tanks with a speed variable pump in between and some valves controlled by a logic controller. me and my friend were bored in between classes so we made a program that used the pumps pwm controller to play old macdonald. Ah the good old days when life was simple.

[LoonerFlight]

I LOVE the crazy things people use to make music. Amazing!

[gmrgamingrm]

The sound the lego motors made INSTANTLY reminded me of the motors you hear in Floppy Drive music. Well done!

[mephisto]

He actually calculated how long the string has to be so Vader stops there exactly at the end. Pure dedication.

[hurtthenotegaming]

NICE! I didn't think I would start my day by hear lego motors sing the Imperial March! good stuff!

[chribster]

I would just like to point out this is exactly how the Floppotron started... and I for one cannot wait...

[loganjsmith_]

This was far more impressive than I was expecting. Nice job!

[jmpattillo]

Do not underestimate the power of the motor controller

[jblen]

*1st day of band practice*
"So what do you play?"
"Lego motors"

[TomResnick]

0:27 What a fantastic approximation of R2-D2 - Honestly, if you were to "simulate" all of R2's beeps and whistles with this motor, it could practically pass for an entirely new droid "speaking" in Binary. Very cool!

[ThatIntellectualBrat]

Just coming up with this idea is amazing!
Then actually showing the motors run at real time instead of just editing it! (The time of coding it took)
And the Darth Vader was the cherry on top 🤣👍

[bacon.cheesecake]

Oh my god, Darth Vader getting pulled is by one of the motors was brilliant! So funny

[oscarguzman]

Hearing the simplified version of this song with basically midi notes gives me a higher appreciation for this song. Truly a banger.

[nikospapageorgiou]

Many things have been made with Legos, but I never thought I'd see and hear a symphonic orchestra... MOST IMPRESSIVE!