{"299681":{"#nid":"299681","#data":{"type":"news","title":"A Different Drummer","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp class=\u0022p1\u0022\u003EBy \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.myajc.com\/staff\/bo-emerson\/\u0022\u003EBo Emerson\u003C\/a\u003E\u2014\u003Cem\u003EThe Atlanta Journal-Constitution\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p8\u0022\u003EBefore he became the first cyborg drummer, Jason Barnes was just a regular drummer, and like many musicians, he had a day job, a grubby grind cleaning the exhaust systems of restaurant oven.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003ESo on a cool, misty January afternoon in 2012, Jason stood in a pool of water on the roof of a restaurant on McDonough\u2019s historic square, working to pay the rent.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p11\u0022\u003EIn a few days, he planned to audition to become a student at the Atlanta Institute of Music and Media. But his skins didn\u2019t pay the bills.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003EHe and assistant Nic Whisnant had already disassembled the fan covering the oven vent. The restaurant was closed, but the streets were full of cars joining the late afternoon rush hour.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003EInside the kitchen the young men had rigged garbage cans to catch water and debris that flowed down as they scrubbed. Up on the roof they sprayed solvents down the exhaust shaft. Then Barnes, 22, picked up an aluminum pole with a magnetic pad on one end.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p15\u0022\u003EOutfitted with razor-sharp blades, the pad is designed to cling to the interior of an oven vent\u2019s vertical shaft, making it easier to scrape off hardened crusts of grease inside as the worker pushes and pulls the pole from above.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003EThis day was different. As Jason lifted the pole, he felt a sudden bolt of fear. \u201cGet the (heck) down!\u201d he screamed at Nic. In the same instant, he heard an explosion and saw a pink flash.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch4 class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ENo stranger to risk\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/h4\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003EWith his short, bristly blond hair perpetually standing on end, and his thin, wiry frame, Jason Barnes looks a little like a human lightning rod. That January day on the restaurant roof wouldn\u2019t be the first or last time he\u2019d attract a bolt from the hand of fate.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p15\u0022\u003EA few years ago he lost a significant chunk of his arm to an untreated spider bite.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003EJust recently he spun his mother\u2019s Taurus on a wet highway, completing a Shaun White-worthy 540 before leaving the pavement. He and the car came out with a few scratches.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003E\u201cHe\u2019s for sure a daredevil,\u201d says friend Amy Ross, a tattoo artist who inked \u201cL-I-V-E\u201d on the knuckles of Jason\u2019s right hand and \u201cL-I-F-E\u201d on the knuckles of his left. \u201cEven if he\u2019s not the one that says \u2018let\u2019s go do this,\u2019 some of these things just find him.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p15\u0022\u003EJason could credit his mother Maggi Pier for his adventurous spirit.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003EHer life has been a vigorous and exploratory quest, moving around the world and experimenting with one business venture after another, not all of them successful. \u201cI was always one to jump in the fire and then decide if it was hot,\u201d says Pier, 63.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003EJason\u2019s father, who no longer lives with the family, is an Australian rock musician named Michael Barnes. Jason inherited that music gene and was playing in metal bands by the time he was a teenager, rotating between bass, guitar and drums.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003EHe was born in Guam and spent part of his childhood in Roat\u00e1n, a tiny island off the coast of Honduras in a cabin on the beach. He grew up skateboarding, racing motocross, cheating death and playing rock \u2019n\u2019 roll. As a representative of the future of wearable robotics, Jason is an unlikely choice, having lived on the edge of civilization during his formative years.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003EBut when he woke up in Grady Hospital, it soon became clear that technology would have to step in where flesh had failed.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch4 class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ELife-changing decision\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/h4\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003EHe knew he\u2019d been hurt, but he didn\u2019t remember how; and he couldn\u2019t figure out why his family was crying.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003EThen he looked at his hand. \u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003E\u201cI was cooked pretty good,\u201d is how Jason describes it.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003EHis hair was singed and the right side of his face and right shoulder were bright red and blistered. Jason thought he\u2019d been hurt in a fire or explosion; he had no memory of the accident.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003ECo-worker Nic would never forget it.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003E\u201cThe flash blinded me,\u201d recalls Nic. They were both knocked off their feet. When Nic jumped up, he saw Jason lying on the roof. \u201cAll his hair was fried off, the sleeves to his clothes were frayed. He looked like a fish on a boat, gasping for air.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003EHis doctor estimates Jason had been hit with about 1,000 volts, after an arc of electricity crossed from an overhead power line into the pole he held in his right hand.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003ESurgeons sliced open his arm to relieve swelling and embedded pins in his fingers to keep them from curling into a permanent claw. Doctors also pulled strips of skin off Jason\u2019s thigh and back to graft onto the damaged arm.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003EThe efforts were in vain. His hand had suffered muscle and nerve damage. Most of its blood vessels were destroyed. After four or five operations it became clear he would never again use that hand to swing a drumstick again.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003EJason faced one of the more painful decisions of his life. But to hear his family describe it, he was pretty matter-of-fact about it. Maybe he was just going stir crazy. Lying in a hospital bed is not his idea of a good time.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003E\u003Cem\u003EWhat\u2019s the fastest way to get me out of here?\u003C\/em\u003E he asked the Grady doctors.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003E\u003Cem\u003EAmputation\u003C\/em\u003E, they said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003ELooking back on the decision now, Jason counts the positives and discounts the negatives.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003EHe points out that getting hot-wired could have turned out much worse. He could have been killed, or suffered brain damage, or lost his dominant hand. (He\u2019s left-handed.) He had been crippled, yes, but he still had something crucial, spelled out in the letters on his left hand: L-I-F-E.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003E\u201cI\u2019m ridiculously lucky, if you think about it,\u201d he says now.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003EHe agreed to the operation, and then his pragmatic pluck deserted him. That night he grieved for all the things he would never get to do again and cried in his mother\u2019s arms.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003EDays later surgeons removed Jason\u2019s right arm below the elbow.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch4 class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E\u2018I can do this\u2019\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/h4\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003EJason left the hospital with a half-million dollars in medical bills and a small settlement from the restaurant that didn\u2019t make much of a dent. He had to quit his job, give up his rental house in Jonesboro and move in with his mom near McDonough. Depressed and defeated, he went crazy with boredom.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003E\u201cWhat I was going to do? Go home, veg out and play video games?\u201d he remembers thinking. \u201cNo, you can\u2019t do that. You can\u2019t play drums anymore. You can\u2019t play guitar anymore. My life was over. I was down and out.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003EBut then one day, three weeks after getting out of the hospital, Jason dragged his old drum set out of his mother\u2019s garage. He still had bandages on his incisions and wore a silicone sleeve to protect the arm during physical therapy.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003EHe took a roll of duct tape, attached a drumstick to his stump and tried out a simple pattern.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003EIt was pathetic. And painful.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003EPlaying hurt so much, it was impossible to do it for more than a minute. And the subtleties of drumming were erased by the crude arrangement. But he saw a light in that dark forest.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003EThings improved when a prosthetician at Hanger Inc. crafted a simple device that would hold a drumstick. Then Jason found a better custom prosthetic at TRS Inc., a company that makes appliances suited for archery, weightlifting, fishing, bicycling, guitar-playing and other activities.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003EHe modified the device with his own hardware, using eyebolts and a spring from his kick drum. His goal was to create some \u201cplay\u201d in the stick, a way for his prosthesis to mimic the \u201cgive\u201d in a drummer\u2019s grip.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003EHe practiced with that appliance for about a year. \u201cI can do this,\u201d he thought. So he rescheduled the audition at Atlanta Institute of Music and Media he had missed the year before. In the fall of 2013 he was admitted to the school, where drum instructor Eric Sanders was impressed by Jason\u2019s determination and persistence.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003ENevertheless, there were some things Jason couldn\u2019t do. A drummer\u2019s grip can tighten or loosen, allowing the execution of single and double-stroke rolls. The more play in the stick, the more freely the stick bounces off the drum head. Without fingers, the grip stays the same.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003EJason began to research myoelectrics, a type of prosthesis controlled by electrical impulses that are generated by the body\u2019s muscles.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003EHe dreamed of being able to use muscle tension in his right forearm to send signals to a mechanical hand, a hand that could instantaneously loosen or tighten its grip on a drumstick.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003EHe told Sanders about his fantasy, but assumed it would never become a reality.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003EHe didn\u2019t know it already was.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch4 class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EThe robot arm\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/h4\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003EGeorgia Tech professor \u003Cstrong\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/robotics.gatech.edu\/team\/faculty\/weinberg\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003EGil Weinberg\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/strong\u003E is a jazz pianist who speaks in rapid-fire bursts that make his Israeli accent even harder to decipher. The founding director of Tech\u2019s Center for Music Technology, he likes to dream up bizarre machines and then build them. He\u2019s the kind of futurist who demonstrates a technology breakthrough by jamming on a Miles Davis tune.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003EWeinberg has become famous in certain circles for developing robots that not only play music, but can improvise it. One of his creations is a marimba-playing android named Shimon that was featured on Stephen Colbert\u2019s TV show. (Colbert joked that Shimon represented the two greatest threats to American life: jazz and robots.)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003EWhy make robots that play music when we already have Skrillex?\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003EThe answer is that robots, just like 5-year-olds, benefit from musical training. The same algorithms that control Weinberg\u2019s machines could help coordinate robot and human cooperation in other settings.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003E\u201cWe want robotic devices to anticipate what humans will be doing and synchronize their robotic actions just in time,\u201d says Weinberg. \u201cThe idea is that if we get this to work in music \u2014 the most time-demanding medium \u2014 it would work in other scenarios, too. Think surgery rooms or space stations.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003EJason\u2019s drum instructor Eric Sanders happened to see Shimon on \u201cThe Colbert Report\u201d and found out Weinberg lived in his own back yard. He contacted the professor and told him about Jason, so Weinberg set up a meeting.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003EJason politely smiled and rolled his eyes when Sanders told him about the professor.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003E\u003Cem\u003ENothing will come of this,\u003C\/em\u003E he said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003EBut while Jason imagined a device that could replicate a normal hand\u2019s range of motions, Weinberg\u2019s ideas went further. He wanted to create something superhuman, something that could play the drums like no one had ever played them before.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003EWeinberg secured a grant from the National Science Foundation to pursue the project and began to design Jason a $50,000 arm. He planned to debut it at the Atlanta Science Fest, less than eight months away, so the deadline was tight.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003EUsing a light aluminum frame, Meka Robotics in San Francisco assembled a device with tiny, powerful, reversible electric motors to run belt-driven wheels that could swing a drumstick through a short arc. A second drumstick was embedded in the apparatus, a stick that Jason could deploy at will, but which would augment his playing with its own improvised additions.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003ESnapped into a carbon-fiber sleeve and hooked up to a nearby laptop, it\u2019s an arm with a mind of its own.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch4 class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EThe test drive\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/h4\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003E\u201cJason?\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003EThe name reverberated through the auditorium. Weinberg was announcing his new protege while an audience of 200 waited expectantly.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003EThey had come to Kennesaw State University to hear the young cyborg drummer perform as the opening act of the inaugural Atlanta Science Fest.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003EBut for a minute, Jason looked like he might be a no-show.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003EWhile Weinberg paged the drummer, Jason was pacing and smoking on a loading dock behind the Bailey Performance Center. He was trying to find a screwdriver to get his pincer prosthetic off. And he wasn\u2019t happy: Weinberg had just told him he wanted him to stand up in front of the audience and tell his story.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003EPlaying drums, even playing with just one hand, is much easier than public speaking.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003E\u201cI don\u2019t know what I\u2019m going to say,\u201d he fumed.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003EIt had been a stressful month. Meka delivered the working arm at the end of February, less than a month before the Science Fest debut. Jason tried it on, played with it for about 30 minutes, and then Weinberg asked him to perform, right then and there, with a group of musicians for a promotional video. Terrified, Jason felt like a student driver being handed the keys to a Lamborghini. Now, once again, he was being forced out of his comfort zone.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003EJason stepped out on the Kennesaw stage and gave the audience a concise, unemotional account of his harrowing experience.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003EThen Jason sat down at his black drum kit and immediately relaxed. He played a percussion duet with Sanders, and then a version of Miles Davis\u2019 classic \u201cSo What?\u201d in a combo featuring Weinberg at the piano.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003EThen Weinberg explained that he had downloaded some rhythmic patterns from atom bomb scientist (and drummer) Richard Feynman, and uploaded those beats into Jason\u2019s arm. This allowed Jason to play a duet with a dead theoretical physicist.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003EFinally, Jason demonstrated some of the super-human qualities of the arm. It can play 20 beats a second \u2014 essentially a one-handed roll. It can play contrapuntal rhythms \u2014 say, five against eight. It\u2019s an arm that sounds like two drummers playing at once. Speed metal drummers would be envious, Jason observed.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003EThough his game face didn\u2019t offer a clue to his feelings, Jason was elated. After the show he pulled off the robot arm, donned his regular pincer, and posed for photographs with giddy audience members, who mobbed him in the lobby.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003E\u201cLook at him,\u201d said friend Nic later. \u201cHe\u2019s bigger and badder than he ever was. He is a way better drummer, and a better person.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch4 class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EMan and machine\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/h4\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003EOn the wall in Jason\u2019s practice shed is a portrait painted by his tattoo artist friend, Amy Ross. It shows Jason\u2019s face, surrounded by lightning-bolt letters that spell out \u201cCheat Death.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003EThe painting helps him keep things in perspective when he gets frustrated. Like when he wants to change the station on the car radio, but has to use his left hand to do it. When he tries to hold his smartphone with his pincer and cracks the screen. When he feels a tiny little itch on the end of his right thumb, which he can\u2019t scratch, because he doesn\u2019t have a right thumb any more.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003EHe is, after all, still here. \u201cI shouldn\u2019t be alive, honestly,\u201d he says. \u201cI mean depression sucks and everything, but feeling sorry for yourself is not going to get you anywhere.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003EAnd even though it was a total hoot to become the first bionic drummer, the robot arm didn\u2019t really solve all of his problems.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003EJason talks about the drawbacks of a $50,000 arm as he shows off his music headquarters, a small outbuilding at his mother\u2019s McDonough house, where the walls are hung with guitars and beer posters and assault rifles, and where his band, when he has one, gets together.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003EThe tour is interrupted by a cellphone call. It\u2019s another journalist requesting an interview, one of dozens he\u2019d done in recent weeks. He\u2019s been on CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, NPR, the Discovery Channel, a German news station and in a handful of print publications.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003EThis is the biggest change: Jason has become a mini-celebrity. \u201cHe\u2019s going to be in Wikipedia!\u201d marveled Maggi. \u201cI Googled his name: It\u2019s page after page!\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003ETo help capture some of that buzz, the family hired a videographer to document the Science Fest concert, and Jason has his own YouTube channel.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003EBut will he continue to be the robo-drummer? The possibilities are tantalizing. Shortly after his Georgia Tech video went public, Jason was contacted by Rick Allen, the drummer from the rock band Def Leppard, whose left arm was severed in a street-racing accident. Allen invited Jason to meet him backstage when his band plays Atlanta in July. One can\u2019t help but imagine a duet between the two one-handed drummers, each aided by high-tech devices.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003EThe fact is, the expensive robo-arm does not belong to Jason, it belongs to Georgia Tech. And while he is grateful to be part of Weinberg\u2019s experiment, it\u2019s clear that Jason prefers his old drum-hand prosthetic. It may not have a mind of its own, but is lighter and more flexible. The Meka arm weighs almost two pounds, which is like holding a quart of beer at arm\u2019s length while trying to play music.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003EYet the recognition he\u2019s gained may be enough to help Jason rise above the sea of other struggling musicians. The life of a musician is a challenge; for drummers the sailing is even rougher, considering the popular taste for electronic dance music and computerized beats.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003EJason\u2019s high profile has already paid off in a few ways. He recently traveled to Los Angeles with his mother for an appearance on the TV show \u201cThe Doctors,\u201d where the producers promised him a bebionic mechanical hand, a $60,000 myoelectric prosthetic device.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003EMaggi Pier is convinced the best is yet to come.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003E\u201cI\u2019ve known in my heart of hearts that Jason will become something big because of this,\u201d she says, sitting on her front porch looking out over her rural property. \u201cIt\u2019s funny how God works, how you have to go through fire to get to something better.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003E\u201cYou can\u2019t let having your arm chopped off keep you from getting on with your life.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EHOW WE GOT THE STORY\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E I first met Jason Barnes at his prosthetician\u2019s office, where he was looking for a new hand. I was going to feature him in a story about the Atlanta Science Fest. Among the dozens of technological marvels revealed at the festival, his robot arm was the coolest. But after I heard his story, I realized it was a deeper, more complex story better suited to a Personal Journey. Later I met his mother, siblings and friends, heard him perform in concert and had a chance to see some of his stranger tattoos up close. (His leg-tat portrait of Michonne from \u201cThe Walking Dead\u201d\u0026nbsp; is creepy and impressive.) Jason was just trying to do his job when a freak accident shoved him into the spotlight. He didn\u2019t ask for the amputation, or the attention, but he has handled both with grace.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EBo Emerson\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E \u003Cstrong\u003EStaff writer\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E \u003Cstrong\u003Epersonaljourneys@ajc.com\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch4 class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EAbout the reporter\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/h4\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EBo Emerson\u003C\/strong\u003E is an Atlanta native who joined The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 1983. He has been a feature writer for most of his AJC career, covering music, the Olympics and Billy Graham\u2019s last crusade.\u0026nbsp; He is also a musician and plays jazz trumpet with Style Points, The Lowlights, and other hackers. He is married to Maureen Downey, who covers education for the AJC.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch4 class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EAbout the photographer\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/h4\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p10\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EDavid Tulis\u003C\/strong\u003E is an Atlanta photojournalist who spent most of his career at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution before striking out on his own in 2009. He has covered the Olympics, the World Series-winning Atlanta Braves team, and traveled to South America, Europe and Africa for the newspaper. He is a member of Georgia State University\u2019s 100th Anniversary Class of 2013 and plays bass guitar with the Sagamores.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Jason Barnes lost his hand, but it didn\u2019t keep him from his passion."}],"uid":"27255","created_gmt":"2014-05-27 13:43:22","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:16:29","author":"Josie Giles","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2014-05-10T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2014-05-10T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"281091":{"id":"281091","type":"image","title":"Robotic Drumming Prosthesis 2","body":null,"created":"1449244184","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 15:49:44","changed":"1475894973","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:49:33","alt":"Robotic Drumming Prosthesis 2","file":{"fid":"198928","name":"12910156984_ae7eacd276_b.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/12910156984_ae7eacd276_b_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/12910156984_ae7eacd276_b_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":327157,"path_740":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/12910156984_ae7eacd276_b_0.jpg?itok=77qI_WE1"}}},"media_ids":["281091"],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.myajc.com\/gallery\/lifestyles\/photo-different-drummer\/gCKkH\/","title":"Photo Gallery on AJC.com"},{"url":"http:\/\/www.myajc.com\/news\/news\/different-drummer\/nfrp5\/#51f95e45.3458751.735367","title":"Original AJC Story"},{"url":"http:\/\/robotics.gatech.edu\/team\/faculty\/weinberg","title":"Gil Weinberg"}],"groups":[{"id":"142761","name":"IRIM"}],"categories":[{"id":"152","name":"Robotics"}],"keywords":[{"id":"1936","name":"Center for Music Technology"},{"id":"10574","name":"Drummer"},{"id":"1939","name":"Gil Weinberg"},{"id":"81491","name":"Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Machines (IRIM)"},{"id":"1356","name":"robot"},{"id":"91391","name":"robot drummer"},{"id":"667","name":"robotics"},{"id":"2352","name":"robots"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39521","name":"Robotics"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EJosie Giles\u003Cbr \/\u003EIRIM Marketing Communications\u003Cbr \/\u003Ejosie@gatech.edu\u003Cbr \/\u003E404-385-8551\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}