Hello everyone and welcome to Cimquest TV,
2 Minute Tuesdays.
In this week’s episode, we’ll show you
our unique melodic instrument design, the
3D printed tubulum.
Our CEO Rob Hassold strived to develop a fun
design that would illustrate some of the cool
capabilities of 3D printing.
Drawing on inspiration from the famous and
exceptionally talented Blue Man Group, Rob
decided to create an iteration of the percussive
tube instrument that Blue Man performs with.
Known as the tubulum, this instrument is similar
to a xylophone or vibraphone in that the musician
strikes it with a stick-like appliance to
produce individual melodic notes.
The traditional Blue Man instrument is built
with PVC pipes, a type of pipe widely used
in plumbing applications.
We realized we could achieve this same geometry
through 3D printing.
The design was first drafted in SolidWorks
CAD as an assembly.
The assembly was then converted into STL files
and sent to our 3d printers.
Using both our Fortus 900 and Fortus 400,
we printed 145 parts for the assembly.
The entire assembly could have been produced
all at once on the Fortus 900.
However, we decided to print in separate pieces
so that we could take advantage of the many
colors available to print with ASA.
The entire instrument including the wheels
have been 3D Printed with the exception of
the cotter pins.
Our tubulum can generate a variety of musical
styles including the popular Beverly Hills
Cop Theme Song “Axel F” and the American
Jazz standard “Take Five” by Dave Brubeck.
It has three octaves and the notes follow
the same arrangement as a piano keyboard.
You can even strike multiple notes at the
same time to produce chords as demonstrated
in the Beatles classic, “Here Comes the
Sun”.
This instrument was a hit during our trade
show season earlier this year, providing both
entertainment and a glimpse of what our technology
is capable of.
The tubulum is a great example of taking an
innovative concept and converting it into
a functional multi-part assembly, all without
outsourcing.
Companies can apply this same practice during
the prototyping stages, with the end goal
of producing optimal designs with superior
functionality and customer appeal.
That concludes this episode of 2 Minute Tuesdays,
thank you for joining and we’ll see you
next time.
