“Orchestra” of Floating Ping Pong Balls

Computers & Mobile Music Science
“Orchestra” of Floating Ping Pong Balls

Though described as an “electronic instrument” and an “orchestra…composed of levitating balls whose physical height determines their volume,” London design group Poietic Studio’s “Floating Orchestra,” cool as it is, cannot possibly be producing the big, bold, brassy sounds of The Benny Goodman Orchestra that accompany their embedded video, above. Which naturally leads me to wonder what it really sounds like. [via Dude Craft]

8 thoughts on ““Orchestra” of Floating Ping Pong Balls

  1. Tim Kemp says:

     I had a toy in the late ’60s that did this (with only one ball).  I remember it working better than this, but it has been a while.

    Perhaps creating laminar air flow would allow smoother control.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laminar_flow

  2. Tim Kemp says:

     I had a toy in the late ’60s that did this (with only one ball).  I remember it working better than this, but it has been a while.

    Perhaps creating laminar air flow would allow smoother control.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laminar_flow

  3. Akosta Innovations says:

    Hi everyone, there is a similar project which can be seen here: http://www.akosta.dk/en/aerialtunes/
    It is similar in the way that it is also build around lightweight white flying balls, however “Aerial Tunes”, as the project is called, is also interactive and allows users to simply put a ball into the airstream in a certain height, and then the balls stays there. Furthermore a musical landscape is formed based on the movements of the balls (and thereby also the interaction from the users).

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I am descended from 5,000 generations of tool-using primates. Also, I went to college and stuff. I am a long-time contributor to MAKE magazine and makezine.com. My work has also appeared in ReadyMade, c't – Magazin für Computertechnik, and The Wall Street Journal.

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