Posted by Bill on June 24, 2000 at 00:09:41:
In Reply to: electronic valve action tuba. posted by Dave Cowie on June 22, 2000 at 19:23:12:
I actually built a similar system several years ago as part of a solution to an Odyssey of the Mind long-term problem. our team had to design a device to aid a handicapped individual perform a task of our choosing. we chose to tackle the playing of a brass instrument by a person without the use of his hands/arms, and built a system by which a player could play tuba (we actually used a sousaphone) by means of foot pedals. it involved the motors that (once upon a time) had controlled the electric door locks in a late 80's oldsmobile, a car battery, a mess of wires, and similar things. we placed the first valve pedal under the player's right foot, and the second and third valve pedals closely spaced and side by side under the players left foot so either pedal or both pedals could be easily accessed. the whole thing worked (suprisingly) exceptionally well. unfortunately, however, there is a thermalcouple in the motors that work your car door locks that causes the motors to become temporarily inoperable once they reach a certain temperature, rather than burn up. in cars, this is extremely effective, as you DO NOT want to have to go through the effort to get to the damn things (trust me...) when you five-year-old burns the motors by playing with your locks. when in use on our device, you would periodically loose a valve, but it was ok, because there was a tell-tale click when a thermalcouple tripped, and you generally can guess what valve was gonna be gone and employ appropriate alternate fingerings. our production model would obviously involve a slightly different design...
our system was obviously far less effective and hightech than yours sounds, but hey, we were sophmores in highschool...
-Bill