The Machine Lab at the California Institute of the Arts, is a space that has been growing for over a decade with improvements and upgrades continuously happening. The room is the hub for the Creative Computing department that encompasses an array of mechatronic instruments, eight televisions around the perimeter of the room, and the newly installed 8x8 array of Modulets.

For the mechatronic instruments, the main server takes advantage of ChucK, a real time music programming language created by the Stanford CCRMA team. Within this system, I created a calibration system to create a more consistent response from all the instruments. For more details you can read the paper here.

Over the the 2025-2026 academic year, in addition to the creation of the calibration system, I updated the overall server that controls the instrument, making small adjustments to take advantage of the improvements and new features introduced into ChucK. I also created a new networking system to allow users to connect to the instruments wirelessly, making it easier for multiple people to connect to the instruments without the need for ethernet cables. For more info on the updates and current state of the lab, you can read the paper here.

The Github repo for the lab can be found here

Other papers about the lab can be found on the Creative Computing website.