St. Andrews Piano

Here are some of the piano drawings. You can see a picture and read about this piano's original design in online articles like this one from South Carolina.

Piano Bus Concept

First Concept

The stringed piano will be in the rear of the body.
The roof will extend with 2 hydraulic arms.
The roof will have a rubber gasket and pull clips for securing when not extended.
The side panel will hinge and lay against the side while conveying. 
The back door is a full panel with a traditional bus pull leaver.

More pictures to come.

-----------------Update-----------

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.