I’ve seen a lot of people asking for more videos of Tako on my channel. What I didn’t mention in the video is how short an octopus’s lifespan actually is. Tako’s species typically lives around 1–2 years in captivity (which is already longer than in the wild). I’ve had him for about 11 months, and he was almost fully grown when I got him. So he’s now entering what’s called the senescence stage — the final phase of an octopus’s life cycle. During this time, they slowly lose energy and curiosity, spending most of their time resting. Tako mostly stays in his cave now. He doesn’t really play with his toys anymore, but amazingly, he still comes out for the piano — but even then, only for a few minutes. So I don’t want to force another video out of him just because our last one went so well! I’ll let him chill — and he looks pretty proud! probably because he knows he’s the best pianist the sea has ever known!
I’ve been experimenting with the idea of making guitar strings magnetically hover/float — so they’re not actually attached to the bridge at all. Only the magnetic force holds the strings in place. I made a video where I try different magnets and posted it to see what you engineers think. Right now, I feel like it has potential, but due to physics, the effect doesn’t look as cool as I’d like it to.
Here’s the video where I test a bunch of magnets — from weak to finger-crushing power
I find the idea intriguing of growing a guitar from a seed. Like, imagine instead of building a guitar for 100s of hours — you make a framework or template that a tree can grow around or inside of.
I got the idea from hearing about a hobby called “arborsculpting,” which is basically shaping a tree as it grows into functional objects, like a chair. It surprised me how much control you can actually have over the way a tree grows.
Anyway, the main issue with this idea seems to be the time it would take. Even using the fastest-growing tree in Europe (willow), it would probably take 1–2 years to grow a guitar. But willow is a very weak wood, so it likely wouldn’t be able to hold much string tension.
So I looked into more exotic options, such as bamboo. Bamboo is the fastest-growing plant and it’s also very strong. However, from my research, bamboo might grow fast, but most of the time it stays dormant in the root system, then randomly shoots up a fast-growing stalk. Bamboo is also not nearly as shapeable or able to fuse into itself the way wood can. So the aesthetics wouldn’t be very nice.
I’m putting this out there to see if any of you engineers have ideas or out-of-the-box solutions for the “growing a guitar from a seed” idea.
I’ve been playing some blues the last days with my octopus on piano. But I thought maybe there is some other genre Tako might prefer. Like heavy metal? Let me know your ideas. I could accompany him with some powerchords. Or even bass.
Engineers! I need your help figuring out how to teach my octopus piano. This video I show all the attempts and piano designs I have created for Takoyaki. Let me know in the video what I should try to finish this video!
I'm a bit stuck teaching my octopus, Takoyaki, how to play piano. But this is what he can do so far. I think I’ll reduce the number of keys and make it a bit more playable for the next version of the piano. I've tried all kinds of tricks—keys with LED lights inside (he hated those), keys that move, even keys with a fake crab inside. But it seems like he likes this piano the most: a piano with levers that wiggle. I've been trying to teach him Under the sea. But it's tricky, because in the middle of songs he just decides do play his own octopus variation of the song.
Mattias Krantz
Mattias Krantz
Curious what you'd rather want to see next. Let me know if you got better ideas!
3 weeks ago | [YT] | 1,773
View 289 replies
Mattias Krantz
I’ve seen a lot of people asking for more videos of Tako on my channel.
What I didn’t mention in the video is how short an octopus’s lifespan actually is. Tako’s species typically lives around 1–2 years in captivity (which is already longer than in the wild).
I’ve had him for about 11 months, and he was almost fully grown when I got him. So he’s now entering what’s called the senescence stage — the final phase of an octopus’s life cycle. During this time, they slowly lose energy and curiosity, spending most of their time resting.
Tako mostly stays in his cave now. He doesn’t really play with his toys anymore, but amazingly, he still comes out for the piano — but even then, only for a few minutes.
So I don’t want to force another video out of him just because our last one went so well! I’ll let him chill — and he looks pretty proud! probably because he knows he’s the best pianist the sea has ever known!
4 weeks ago | [YT] | 36,369
View 1,200 replies
Mattias Krantz
Tako says thank you to the 2.7 million people that has already watched and commented on the latest video!
1 month ago | [YT] | 38,751
View 1,000 replies
Mattias Krantz
I’ve been experimenting with the idea of making guitar strings magnetically hover/float — so they’re not actually attached to the bridge at all. Only the magnetic force holds the strings in place. I made a video where I try different magnets and posted it to see what you engineers think. Right now, I feel like it has potential, but due to physics, the effect doesn’t look as cool as I’d like it to.
Here’s the video where I test a bunch of magnets — from weak to finger-crushing power
1 month ago | [YT] | 387
View 34 replies
Mattias Krantz
I find the idea intriguing of growing a guitar from a seed. Like, imagine instead of building a guitar for 100s of hours — you make a framework or template that a tree can grow around or inside of.
I got the idea from hearing about a hobby called “arborsculpting,” which is basically shaping a tree as it grows into functional objects, like a chair. It surprised me how much control you can actually have over the way a tree grows.
Anyway, the main issue with this idea seems to be the time it would take. Even using the fastest-growing tree in Europe (willow), it would probably take 1–2 years to grow a guitar. But willow is a very weak wood, so it likely wouldn’t be able to hold much string tension.
So I looked into more exotic options, such as bamboo. Bamboo is the fastest-growing plant and it’s also very strong. However, from my research, bamboo might grow fast, but most of the time it stays dormant in the root system, then randomly shoots up a fast-growing stalk. Bamboo is also not nearly as shapeable or able to fuse into itself the way wood can. So the aesthetics wouldn’t be very nice.
I’m putting this out there to see if any of you engineers have ideas or out-of-the-box solutions for the “growing a guitar from a seed” idea.
1 month ago | [YT] | 4,078
View 358 replies
Mattias Krantz
I’ve been playing some blues the last days with my octopus on piano. But I thought maybe there is some other genre Tako might prefer. Like heavy metal? Let me know your ideas. I could accompany him with some powerchords. Or even bass.
3 months ago | [YT] | 941
View 70 replies
Mattias Krantz
Engineers! I need your help figuring out how to teach my octopus piano. This video I show all the attempts and piano designs I have created for Takoyaki. Let me know in the video what I should try to finish this video!
4 months ago | [YT] | 502
View 29 replies
Mattias Krantz
I'm a bit stuck teaching my octopus, Takoyaki, how to play piano. But this is what he can do so far. I think I’ll reduce the number of keys and make it a bit more playable for the next version of the piano. I've tried all kinds of tricks—keys with LED lights inside (he hated those), keys that move, even keys with a fake crab inside. But it seems like he likes this piano the most: a piano with levers that wiggle.
I've been trying to teach him Under the sea. But it's tricky, because in the middle of songs he just decides do play his own octopus variation of the song.
4 months ago | [YT] | 525
View 23 replies
Mattias Krantz
What title do you find the most intruiging?
5 months ago | [YT] | 224
View 62 replies
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