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| Engineers to the rescue: CMU helps Ambridge Area musicians make it through Rose Bowl parade |
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Wednesday, January 07, 2004 The word from the
Tournament of Roses parade was a double bonus for Ambridge Area High School
-- both its marching band and steel drum band were invited to play. But then the question arose: How could members of the steel drum corps, some playing drums that weigh up to 50 pounds, high-step the 5.5-mile parade route and not keel over? The answer was they couldn't, at least not without the help of the Carnegie Mellon University Department of Engineering and some Ambridge Area football players. Our "original plan was just to put the steel band on a motorized float," steel drum director Todd Hartman said. But organizers of the New Year's Day parade in Pasadena, Calif., nixed that idea, citing liability problems. "So we called CMU," Hartman said. "We figured they can build robots, they can probably design us some pushcarts." Hartman figured correctly. Hartman and Sal Aloe, chairman of the music department and director of bands for the Ambridge Area School District, were put in touch with Larry Cartwright, a Carnegie Mellon civil and environmental engineer who lives in Chippewa.
Cartwright said that one of his senior engineering students, Phil Clingman, might be able to help. As part of his senior design project, Clingman was to come up with a plan that would allow the steel band to perform. The Ambridge Area High School Marching Band has about 280 members. The steel drum corps has about 30 members who perform concert-style because their drums weigh 15 to 50 pounds. In addition, some members play as many as six drums, making music on the move quite difficult. Cartwright and Clingman worked together to design lightweight aluminum pushcarts with parking brakes for safety and tethers to hold the drummers in place. Thirteen carts were built, two larger than the others to accommodate each of the two musicians who play six 55-gallon drums. "They're gorgeous.
They're the Rolls-Royce of pushcarts," Hartman said. "Each cart has four wheels and something to suspend the steel drums on. On the back of each cart is a big push bar for the pushers to push on." That's where the football players came in. They, along with a manager of the steel drum corps, two Ambridge Area graduates and Clingman, were recruited to push the carts. The carts, which were built at Carnegie Mellon's engineering department, were painted garnet because Ambridge Area's colors are garnet and gray. They were loaded in wooden crates on a jumbo charter jet and flown to California with the bands, some family members, school administrators, chaperones and the football players. The price tag for trip expenses was about $450,000. The school district contributed $28,000 to defray the bands' transportation costs, but Hartman said no district funds were used for the carts. The cost of the carts and part of the fees for the bands' travel was covered by the nonprofit Ambridge Area Band Boosters. Cartwright said the district was not charged for the design or for the estimated 600 work hours donated by him, Clingman and members of a Carnegie Mellon work-study group who drilled thousands of holes and performed the grinding and cutting to complete the carts. Hartman said O'Neal Steel Inc., of Ambridge, provided aluminum for the project at a low cost. Superintendent Kenneth Voss said some school officials and local politicians also made private donations. Voss said he paid his own way to Pasadena. More On Ambridge Area High School Steel Drum Band
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When Steel Talks
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Hartman
was taken by the symbolism of Cartwright's name, considering what they were
asking him to design. Over breakfast at a local restaurant, the three
discussed the problem.
