Band-Beesten 2014

This is the continued interdepartmental effort to both create a fully mobile drum set for use by the Vandal Marching Band and market the efforts of the University of Idaho's Mechanical Engineering Department. Current design goals for the Band-Beesten focus on decreasing weight and Omni-ball friction while allowing for a wider variety of instruments to be used, as well as market the work done by the engineering team by creating a video to show off the UI Marching Band.

Background
The original idea for the project began a few years before the Fall of 2011 by Dr. Edwin Odom, Professor of Mechanical Engineering, and Dr. Daniel Bukvich, Professor of Percussion and Music Theory. The plan was to collaborate between their disciplines and create a finely tuned, expertly engineered drum set that is fit for a full on-field marching band performance.

The Fall of 2011 marked the initial experimentation and design of the Beest by a Capstone Design team in the engineering department. These initial tests provided insight on what worked well and what needed improvement. The final design from this year was never seen outside of the engineering buildings on campus, but the following year's goals were clear and a new design began immediately. For more in depth design details refer to the Team Drum Roll webpage.

The Fall of 2012 marked the first public introduction of the Beest, which has become a yearly project in the Capstone Design process. Dan Mathewson, a University of Idaho graduate student, designed and utilized a robotic, power driven front wheel that responded to the drummers input and included brightly lit led's on the forward facing drums. It successfully astounded the audience and fulfilled the requirement of marching with a wheeled drum set, but it could still be improved. Dan's thesis can be found in the References section.

The Beest was successfully used during the last two home games of the 2013 football season with the new omni-wheels working as intended. The future of the project will entail designing a lightweight, efficient frame that can be easily dismantled for easy storage by the marching band as well as creating a stop-motion video of the halftime show using Lego to be used for marketing purposes.

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First Semester

 * Create a mobile drumming platform to be used in time by the UI Marching Band in its last two halftime shows.
 * Drumming platform must be able to move in any direction easily solely from drummer input.
 * Drumming platform must carry at least 6 different instruments to out-show the quad drums.
 * Create a Txalaparta and four mallets to be used in time by the UI Marching Band in its last two halftime shows.

Second Semester

 * Re-design the chassis for the Band-Beesten drumming platform to be lightweight and collapsable.
 * Create a marketing video for the UI Marching Band featuring the Txalaparta and Band-Beesten out of Lego.
 * Create 3D printed models of each instrument used by the Band and recreate the UI halftime show out of stop-motion Lego.

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Completed First Semester Design
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Video Design Specifications

 * Lego Scale Props Needed:
 * One Marching Band Bass Drum
 * Two Guitars
 * One Set of Quad-Drums
 * Two Saxophones
 * Three Trumpets
 * One Snare Drum
 * One Model of Previous Band-Beesten
 * One Model of Txalaparta
 * Lego Figure Pieces:
 * Seven Plain White Lego Figure Torsos
 * Seven Black Lego Figure Legs
 * Seven Lego Heads with Sunglasses
 * Seven 'Idaho' Decals for Uniforms
 * Seven 'Idaho' Capes for Uniforms
 * Seven Lego Hats
 * '''Lego Set Pieces
 * Black Felt Backdrop
 * Base Lego platform


 * General Video features:
 * Video must be shot in at least 10 Frames per Second.
 * Video must encompass some form of each aspect from the actual halftime show video.
 * Strong focus on the Txalaparta
 * Blend real life with the 'Lego World.'
 * High enough quality to be used by the UI Marching Band during video entrance of future halftime shows.

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Filming
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Final Product
We will post a link to the final video product here once it has been completed

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Team Members
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Document Archive
Friction Testing Report

Friction Testing Results

Omni-ball Drawing Package

Finale Photo

Testing
{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: left;" ! style="text-align: left;"|Test Photo ! style="text-align: left;"|Overview ! style="text-align: left;"|Results
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 * valign="top" align="center"|Fish Scale Test.jpg
 * valign="top" align="left"|Fishing Scale Correlation Testing
 * valign="top" align="left"|Fishing Scale Correlation Testing

Objective:

We needed an equation that correlated the voltage output of the fishing scale to the force of the pull.

Set-up:

A fish scale is being used to measure the force required to move the wheel testing apparatus.

In conjunction with the scale, there is a DATAQ-155 data acquisition device that can be connected to a computer to record the voltage changes of the pulling force.

In order to use this and accurately measure the force for each pull it needs to be calibrated and an equation formulated for the final test.

A more detailed explanation can be found in the final report:

Fishing Scale Report
 * valign="top" align="left"|The data was compiled in Excel and the final correlations were calculated.

They can be found in the link below:

Fishing Scale Results
 * valign="top" align="center"|FrictionTest1.jpg
 * valign="top" align="center"|FrictionTest1.jpg


 * valign="top" align="left"|Omni-Wheel/Ball Caster Friction Testing

Objective:

We needed to find the optimum wheel type, orientation, and angle placement to produce a ball wheel with the lowest friction possible.

Set-up:

The apparatus is pulled with the fishing scale to measure the force needed to move the wheel from a resting position.

Three types of wheels are being tested, single omni-wheels, paired omni-wheels, and ball casters.

The types will be tested using angles ranging from 40o up to 55o, and the omni-wheels will be oriented either vertically or horizontally.

Once the forces are recorded and the apparatus is weighed, the friction can be calculated for each variation.

For the full test explanation, see the final report:

Friction Testing Report


 * valign="top" align="left"|The test revealed that the friction reduces as the angle rises.

The best orientation for a final product is with the paired omni-wheels in the horizontal orientation at 50o from the equator of the basketball.

This orientation is deemed best as long as there are supporting wheels below the equator to prevent the ball from rolling off of the wheel base.

See more detailed results below:

Friction Testing Results


 * IMG 1624.JPG
 * valign="top" align="left"|Tetrahedron Frame Testing
 * valign="top" align="left"|Tetrahedron Frame Testing

Objective:

We needed to create a physical mock-up of the frame to find flaws and work on improvements before creating the final design.

Set-up:

This frame was a wood mock-up of version 3 seen in the Frame Design section above with slight modification for visualization purposes.

It was built with wood donated and cut by the College of Natural Resources, and was pieced together using various screws and brackets.


 * valign="top" align="left"|

The mock-up worked well and provided a chance to modify it quickly and reinforce where necessary.

Due to time constraints, this frame became part of the final design.

It could use some further redesigning and testing to be more complete and easier to recreate but worked well for the purposes of this project.

Frame Design

 * Problems from 2013:
 * Omni-wheels were designed for very specific ball size; large balls got stuck, small balls slipped out
 * Basketball needed to be refilled prior to every performance to prevent slipping out
 * Wood frame was unable to rigidly hold all instruments securely
 * Assembled Beest was too heavy due to extraneous supports, electronics, and non-ideal frame design.
 * Improvements for 2014:
 * Re-design the frame to allow for a wider variety of instrument use
 * Frame needs to be easily collapsible for storage
 * Frame needs to be at least 20% lighter than previous incarnation
 * Omni-Ball frame should be reworked to allow for a wider variety of ball size
 * New attachment method for Omni-Ball assembly to reduce weight and increase stability

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Frame Designs (to be changed)
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