Senior Design - BethoVAN III

Tasked to build a way to transport and store a baby grand piano in a trailer, the team designed a shelf to store and flip the piano in the trailer when needed.

Building a shelf out of steel that is strong enough to hold the weight of the piano lifted by a linear actuator. Pins, legs, supports, and the welds made by the team all needed to be good enough to lift the roughly 600lb piano.

Along with the piano, an extension was made to roll the piano onto the shelf for the concerts. Diagrams and videos to demonstrate how to load and unload the piano were made. Diagrams for how to strap the piano down for transportation were also needed.

This projects was very space confined and much more about the manufacturing of the design rather than the design itself. Manufacturing skill including welding, woodwork, and wiring, as well as basic use of tools was heavily used in the project to meet the deadline for the BethoVAN team.