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"Check out this awe-inspiring drum machine that makes beats from your favourite childhood toy- LEGO!  Watch out- here&amp;rsquo;s the science bit&amp;hellip; Created by Irish computer security engineer and LEGO whizz Mark Crosbie the &amp;quot;SoundMachine&amp;quot; was created using the LEGO Mindstorm kit- which contains hardware and software for users to build robotic devices. The finished piece is a LEGO midi sequencer which turns coloured blocks into beats.  Crosbie used a standard blue Lego plate to create four tracks of eight beats, scanned the LEGO bricks using a colour sensor which then converted the colours into Midi notes.  For the pi&amp;egrave;ce de r&amp;eacute;sistance the notes are played through a laptop on Ableton live programme to create some sick beats.  Crosbie says: &amp;quot;I&amp;rsquo;ve built three SoundMachine units to work together to compose more complex musical pieces. I&amp;rsquo;m not much of a musician, so for now I play drum-machines and other &amp;quot;techno&amp;quot; instruments on my laptop controlled by data from SoundMachine.&amp;quot;  Who would have ever thought that the humble LEGO brick could reach such dizzying heights?"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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