A visit the from Shortcut High Bus : Pianobus discussions

So we had this idea to create a piano car, then we met Jerry Bower, the creator of The Shortcut High Bus. I actually meet him at the Railroad Day festival last year when he was promoting Patrick Henry Boys and Girls Homes. He is a great guy and he made a great machine. We figured what better way to promote our piano/engineering/art/designing /STEAM/STEM program than to build one ourselves with a piano theme. 

Let us get to designing.

3D Printing with PLA some of the drawings students are been making.

We are printing with PLA, because it is currently the most able filament to use for fun prototyping. We have nylon and ABS, but they are a bit less forgiving and more caustic to heat. PLA creates a rigid object with minimal expansion. The printer we are using has dual extruders, but we are only using one. We have a heated aluminum plate with painters tape over it. The x,y, and z axis  are controlled by small stepper motors and an Adruino computer. So much fun. If could print anything, what would you print?

Piano Progress: The Frame/Skeleton

"It's Alive," well at least as alive as dead wood can be.


We have begun our first of four piano's. 
This is going to be gorgeous.
We had a snow day so we decided to head to the school and construct the piano skeleton or frame/base. We had pizza and glue (for the wood). It was a good time for some of the students who could make it.

DraftEngine.org

We also purchased DraftEngine.org. Are specific www. url's still relevant today. What do you think?

Some images and ideas for our website DraftEngine.org

Design a new Piano

Lets hear it, what would you like to see? We are thinking of a new lite weight piano design. We have started building a prototype. What kind of materials should we use? This is going to be amazing, More to come we are shooting some video today.

STEM vs. STEAM

Acronyms abound Science, Technology, Engineering, and ART, & Math. STEAM. I have always loved steam anyway, why not call it STEAM. I have always thought acronyms to be punny, but limiting.

Without the philosophy or the art behind any subject, the subject is a hollow shell, and a flimsy one at that. It has no purpose except to look appealing.

We are applying STEAM through:

• Materials Research 
• Load Tolerance
• Tensile Strength
• Materials Cost
• Application Design
• Construction
• Scanning Lasers
• 3d Printing
• Software Application
• Programming
• Computer Aided Drafting (CAD)
• Board Drafting/Drawing
• Creative Planning
• Product Design
• Industry Application
• Business Practices
• Employee Development
• Presentations
• Group Dynamics
• Project Planning
• Job Skills
• Inspiring Creativity
• Innovation
• Patent Education
• Open Source

I have to stop there because this list could go o for a while. What we are doing with this program inside and outside of the school touches every aspect of what it means to study and produce in a society that champions the good. 

Art is the meaning for all of it. No one looks at something created and says, " I want that it has no artistic appeal at all." In fact the opposite is true. We buy things for the sole purpose of art. Just look at Merchandising for the clearest possible example. You can walk into a grocery store and see art on display even in the way vegetables are arranged. Our world is created with beauty and we honor creation  when we make things beautiful and beautifully.

Please join efforts to make these types of programs available to anyone. Here is to helping each other out. Let us make tomorrow better than today. Full STEAM ahead, if that is what you want to call it.

You can learn more about ours and other STEAM programs at:

http://stemtosteam.org/

http://scholarship.claremont.edu/steam/

And let us know if you have other resources to include here.

We have been teaching board drafting from an old textbook and it has been awesome. The kids are loving the class and not just because we crack jokes. The information in this field has not changed much in the last century. CAD sure has changed since it's inception and that has required us teachers to get to our study. The folks at Autodesk have been busy developing new software and we have been busy trying to get in touch with them. We have meet some good folks along the way. We learned o rotate a pumpkin. We drafted sheet metal for laser cutting. I will post more on that tomorrow.