Design team members: Anne-Marie Allen, Megan Campbell, Emilie Langevin
Supervisor: Prof. Stephen Birkett
Background
Clarence Hickman was a pretty interesting inventor; he blew off five of his fingers while experimenting with rockets and explosives, and then designed a special clarinet so that he could continue to play. In addition to working on rockets, bazookas and archery bows, he also invented an innovative piano action. This ‘Hickman action' is the focus of our design project.
When you push a piano key down, the action makes the hammer fly up and hit the piano wire, sounding a note. In the 1930s, Clarence Hickman designed a new piano action. It's less complicated than a conventional action (it has only half the moving parts) so it could be cheaper and easier to manufacture than the actions that are currently used in pianos. But despite this advantage, the Hickman action hasn't been used in many pianos because just after it was invented the Great Depression hit and there was a huge decline in piano manufacturing. This project is a step towards using the Hickman action in new pianos.
Project description
The main goals of our project are to build a computer model and a physical working prototype of the Hickman action. This will help us understand how the action works. We'll experiment with our model to see if there are changes to the design or geometry of the action that will make it work better. Then, we'll figure out how we can build the Hickman action with modern materials and manufacturing techniques.
Design methodology
We'll be creating our model of the Hickman action using DynaFlexPro, a computer program that generates symbolic equations that describe how the Hickman action moves. We'll build an initial prototype of the action out of traditional materials (wood, felt and metal), and then compare the movement of our prototype to the movement predicted by our model. Once we've refined our model we'll use it to test design improvements that we could make to the action. Then once we have a final model we'll build a working prototype to reflect the improvements, using modern materials and techniques. Hopefully this will demonstrate how the Hickman action could be mass-produced for use in new pianos!