While not practical for everyday use, the experiment has helped both computer experts and novices alike better understand how computer networks operate, said R. Stuart Geiger, a graduate student at the Berkeley's School of Information who led the project.

Geiger discussed his work at the at the Association for Computing Machinery's Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, which was held this week in Austin, Texas.

The experiment "gave me an appreciation for how the Internet was designed. You can really take anything and put it anywhere," Geiger said, in an interview after the presentation.

Geiger's network protocol, Internet Protocol over Xylophone Players (IPoXP), provides a fully compliant IP connection between two computers. His setup uses a pair of Arduino microcontrollers, some sensors, a pair of xylophones and two people to play the xylophones.

In a typical setup, the computer will send a message packet to the microcontroller in the ACSII format, which the microcontroller converts into hexadecimal code. The Arduino is attached to a series of series of LED's. Each LED corresponds to a hexadecimal character, as well as a key on a xylophone.