Bionic arm gives cyborg drummer superhuman skills

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Jason Barnes’s prosthetic arm will let him live his drumming dream in his first gig this month – but it also adds its own rhythms inspired by jazz greats

JASON BARNES had wanted to be a professional drummer since he was a teenager. But when he lost his arm in a freak accident he thought his dream was over. Now he has a second chance at the big time – thanks to a brand new robotic arm.

Barnes lost the lower half of his right arm two years ago, after getting an electric shock while cleaning a vent hood in a restaurant. But he refused to give up on his musical dream, so he built a simple drumming device out of a brace and some springs that attached to his arm. Although Barnes couldn’t play quite as adeptly as before the accident, he was able to enrol at the Atlanta Institute of Music and Media in Georgia, and to make plans for a future career in music.

At the institute, Barnes caught the eye of drum instructor Eric Sanders, who introduced him to Gil Weinberg, an engineer at the Georgia Institute of Technology. The group hatched a plan to build Barnes a robotic arm that would allow him to play just as well as any human drummer – or perhaps even better.

Last week, Barnes tried the finished device for the first time. “It was pretty awesome,” he says. “If it works out and it proves to be a lot more useful than my current prosthesis, I would definitely use it all the time.”

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The above story is based on materials provided by New Scientist.

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