Concept Design 2

This week, we went to the music department for finding some new ideas. We got some thinking from the electronic organ, guitar, and saxophone.

Michael used the theory of the guitar to develop a basic design as shown in Figure 1. There are several paddles applied on the strings like fingers pluck the strings. The hammer will knock the African drum for the low-pitch sound.

Figure 1, Basic design from Michael

The second design from Michael is an equipment with the idea from piano. The keys could be pressed and the programming wheel will rotate. When the hammer knock the wheel the sound comes up, as you can see in Figure 2.

Figure 2, Second design from Michael.

Because to make those instruments played by themselves, certain button required to be pushed by certain pattern, which means we need to program the power source. In order to program then, Qiming came up with an idea: using the attractive force and repulsive force of magnets. We can program those magnets in different positions of the wheel. When the wheels are rotation, the magnetic field can create attractive and repulsive force to make sound. We can make different combinations of sound by simply change the locations of the magnets.

Figure 3, Qiming's initial design

Figure 4, Michael's third design.

By combined Michael's and Qiming's ideas, Qiming was able to sketch the first edition of final design. This is Qiming's developed design, there are 3 parts for low, medium and high pitches. As you can see, the right hand side is a handle which rotated for providing the energy of the system. Three different parts of the system were connected by the crank. The piston part is made for low pitch, the magnetic wheel is made for high pitch, and the string part is medium pitch as well, as the Figure 5 shown.

Figure 5, Qiming's developed design.

After did some research, we learned that Sheffield is basically built on seven hills, so Qiming came up with an idea that use seven gear transport units which looks like seven hills to transport old coins, another object that can represent Sheffield. After the old coins drops, coins with different speed would hit different instruments. Different instruments can be programmed to make different sounds.

Figure 6, Qiming's additional design