What is the prompt for this project?

Our prompt was to create a musical precedent for the front of the school that will attract people to the school. There were some challenges though. We couldn't destroy any parts of the building, the precedent can't be played at certain hours, and it has to be reasonable to make, we can't request large purchases such as $1,000 worth of some material.

How are we addressing this prompt?

Our massive recorder doesn't need to be placed in a spot in which it will destroy parts of the building, we will add a sign that lists hours at which our instrument can be played, and we didn't need large purchases, everything we needed to be purchased was under $100 combined.

Description:

Our musical precedent is a recorder, it is about 100" long and around 4.7" wide. It is made out of PVC pipe, has a 3D printed head and has holes drilled in it.  And we will have small PVC pipes that are 1.33' and 2' long with U hooks in them hammered into the ground, which will then hold our instrument. We will have an air pump in a box on the ground next to the recorder which will be used to play it.

How to play it:

You insert the head of the air pump into the mouthpiece of the recorder, you have some friends covering the holes, you pump the air and move your fingers on and off the holes as necessary to create a song.

Lessons learned from the prototype:

Making a big recorder is very challenging. Making large woodwind instruments is very hard. Designing a recorder head is no easy task. Patience is key when it comes to design.

Next steps:

The next step would be to add a 3D printed bottom. And create a piece on the pump that will fit into the recorder head so that it will make the intended sound.

Outside precedents which informed our design:

When I first searched giant recorder on images it came up with a sculpture of a giant recorder that lives on a playground in the UK. Everytime we were challenged during the process I thought of the recorder and how it was designed and tried to work on ours based off that recorder.

Lessons learned from final project:

Don't promise an incoming seventh grader that you will have made a giant recorder for outside the school. Making a 100"+ long recorder is near impossible when you're using a tiny recorder for the head. Designing takes so much revising, too much.