The floppotron – a massive’PC hardware orchestra’ – plays music using only electric motors. It was a popular attraction at local fair in rural Yorkshire.

The floppotron 3.0 is the work of Polish engineer Pawel zadrozniak. It consists of a pair of floppy drives playing the imperial March from Star Wars.

The concept behind the floppotron is simply that electric motors make noise. Tune exactly how fast and hard you run the motor (its frequency) and you can produce specific notes.

The floppy disk drive wall is arranged into columns, each of which handles a single note at a time. The scanner section uses the scanners’ larger motors to provide the higher pitches.