Wrapping up!

Hello once more!

It has been quite a bit since my last post! (not really because I just posted it, but it has been a while since I wrote it!!!!)

Anyway, goofs aside, there is so much to update about. I can’t say that I have officially finished the 3D printed bagpipes yet, as I currently (May 7th, 2024 at 1:38pm) still have the final piece on the printer.

To tie back to my previous post, I was printing those 5 pieces together at once. (the Photochanter shell, the bass drone middle, and the three stocks, one for each drone)

Those came off the printer beautifully… for the most part. The Photochanter shell looked great (and worked great, after having assembled all of the electronics) I’ll include two quick photos of that below.

This project was so enjoyable, and once I got all of the photoresistors in there, it worked surprisingly well. I ended up not using the Arduino Nano, and just plugging those loose wires into an Arduino Uno from the electronics lab. During the presentation, I realized that I had calibrated the photoresistors to the light intensity in the electronics lab, and not the spotlights in the Seacobeck concert hall, which caused some problems. However, once I had a classmate stand up with a flashlight, all was well!

This is not necessarily related to the project, but it is still 3D printed, and bagpipe related, so I figured it was worth including lol

ANYWAY back to your regularly scheduled programming. As you might be able to see in the above picture of the 5 pieces on the printer- the bass drone middle was a little wonky when it finished; the same issue I had before with the layer shifting toward the top. I’m starting to believe that it might just be the combination of an older printer, and a tall, thin print. Still not sure why it works sometimes, and fails others. Adding to for future research!

After pulling those off the printer, I started the chanter stock and the bass drone bottom on Rebecca’s printer. Then, with my 3 stocks in hand, I made my way over to the DKC and officially started the assembly of the pipes. (This was April 21st for some perspective)

I struggled to pull the stocks through the gaskets on the bag, but that’s a regular struggle with the bagpipes. It was marvelous to see this bagpipe bag with three blue stocks sticking out of the top.

In the next day or two, I was able to pick up my chanter stock and bass drone bottom from Rebecca’s printer. Once again, the bass drone bottom has the same layer shifting issue that I had encountered before with the bass drone middle. I was bummed, as that was the last piece I needed for my presentation at Research and Creativity day on April 26th. I would have had time to print another, but other students were using the printers for their final projects as well.

So I shambled back over to the DKC, and attached my chanter stock with the included hose-clamp, and then installed my blowpipe split-stock. For context, a split-stock is similar to a regular stock, in that it connects your blowpipe directly to your bag. However, a split-stock has a built in water trap, meaning that all of the piper’s spit gets stuck in a tube instead of falling into the bag. Yeah… real good stuff.

As I had nearly every piece completed, I replaced the wonky bass drone bottom with my personal, polyoxymethylene bass drone bottom, and committed to showcasing the “almost ENTIRELY 3D PRINTED BAGPIPES” at Research and Creativity day.

The presentation went so well- I was throwing together a slideshow the morning-of, and then took the last 10 minutes to set up my room in the HCC. I was SO glad to see some familiar faces in the audience; Cartland and Shannon, a few of my professors, the Chair of the Music Department, and the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences!!!! (and a few close friends that I would be remiss to not mention) I couldn’t have been happier with the turnout, and everything came together really well. The pipes did not cooperate during the demonstration, but it was evident that they worked, which is all I could ask for.

I’ll include a few photos below!

My opening slide, mentioning that I brought some earplugs for those who wanted them.

Don’t look at my face, thank you 🙂

This photo includes the four students who have been working with the DKC on different fellowships. Cartland on the left, Shannon on the right, and the four of us in the middle (left to right) are Liam Kiely, Eugene Hlaing, myself, and Boone Fleenor! Liam and Eugene were working on their own webcomic, and Boone was building a water flume from scratch.

ANYWAY!!! I have been playing with the pipes a bit since Research and Creativity day. Shout out to Olivia Corcoran for putting up with my taking over of EPB practices; she’s given up quite a bit of practice time to help me work out the kinks in these pipes and I am so grateful. They work well, they’re just either too easy or too hard to play, and that gray area in the middle is so slim that I have not found it yet.

Update: I am headed to the Vocelli’s patio right now (Thursday, May 9th, 2024 at 9:00am) to try to find out how I can make these a bit more consistent for Saturday!!! Commencement is coming up quickly!!! Two days til graduation AHHHHHHHHH BYE

Update 2: It is currently 10am on May 10th, 2024! Yesterday morning, I spent a good bit of time working on the pipes; I swapped out reeds a couple of times, trying to find the best combination that would stay consistent for commencement tomorrow. I think I did it!

I’ll include one more blog post after commencement with a few photos and videos, and a bit of a conclusion to the project for now, but I also just realized that I haven’t included a photo of the full pipes yet. Here you go!

FAREWELL!!!!!!