Progress
Using an idea from a video I watched about making a programmable music box, I decided to make flexible pieces that would snap into place in the holes along the barrel. I had to print two different designs before I found one that worked. The working design is pictured below.
My design process so far has been just creating the pieces in Rhino, but I’m going to have to use grasshopper for the percussion instrument bodies.
Here’s the finished design of the barrel with a 32×6 matrix of holes (my original plan of a 120×6 matrix was infeasible), and what I have printed so far (I’ve had my printer working for 148 hours to get this far!):
The current design is 296 mm long and 220 mm tall. The width is going to grow with the addition of the percussion mechanisms.
A couple of the lengthwise pieces didn’t fit together perfectly (there was one time I forgot to clip down my print bed fully, and it bent slightly over the course of the long print, causing the pieces to warp slightly, but I was able to force them together and they are quite sturdy as a whole).
Update Timeline
By Tue Nov 26th:
- Design and print the cylinder and the legs it stands on
- Design and print some pieces that snap into the cylinder
- Design the mechanisms that strike, scrape, and shake percussive instruments
By Tue Dec 3rd:
- Print the mechanisms (at least 3: one of each type)
- Design and print a base for the whole drum machine
- Design some percussive instrument bodies to be struck, scraped, and shaken using Grasshopper and the Turtle library
- Print some of the instruments and test them
By Tue Dec 10th:
- Print further instruments as part of an iterative design process to get the sounds I want
- Add decorative designs and reprint necessary parts
- Present the project!
Updated Deliverables
- The drum machine base (where everything else will be mounted)
- The cylinder with a 32×6 matrix of dowel holes (32 possible timing instances and 6 possible instruments)
- The hand crank (and possibly some gears) to turn the cylinder
- 3-6 lever-action mechanisms for striking the instruments (some may be the same, but there will be at least three different designs: one for striking, one for scraping, and one for shaking)
- 3-6 different percussive instruments (some to be struck, some to be scraped, and some to be shaken)