3 ms·

I bet you could tune the designs so the cables could be played like the strings of a harp. But with a sledgehammer! It's a lot to ask for. But it would be so w

I bet you could tune the designs so the cables could be played like the strings of a harp. But with a sledgehammer! It's a lot to ask for. But it would be so worth it.

dwighttk 9y ago
yes yes Let's encourage people to bang on bridges with sledgehammers totally worth it
- logfromblammo 9y ago
  If you don't design your bridge with the expectation that some yahoo may one day try to bang on the cables with a sledgehammer, you aren't doing your job as an engineer. If it is possible, someone will eventually do it. But the sledgehammer thing is likely insignificant compared with a fully-loaded dump truck crashing into any particular piece of your bridge. So I trust the competence of the engineers that design suspension or cable-stayed highway bridges to the point that I would not worry about someone--or 88 different someones--trying to play one of those bridges like a piano. Or at least I wouldn't worry about the structural integrity of the bridge. I might worry about the quality of the "music".
cannam 9y ago
"Human Harp is a clip-on instrument that transforms suspension bridges into giant harps" http://dimainstone.com/project/human-harp/ http://dimainstone.com/project/human-harp/
- dom0 9y ago
  That's actually not using the bridge as an instrument... the little boxes measure how you pull on the wire and send that data to a synthesizer. That's why it sounds so diverse.
rsync 9y ago
"I bet you could tune the designs so the cables could be played like the strings of a harp." This exists: http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/infrastructure/a20082/route-66-musical-highway/ http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/infrastructure/a2... There are a few of them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_road https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_road

3 ms·

I bet you could tune the designs so the cables could be played like the strings of a harp. But with a sledgehammer! It's a lot to ask for. But it would be so w

by johan_larson 9y ago

I bet you could tune the designs so the cables could be played like the strings of a harp. But with a sledgehammer! It's a lot to ask for. But it would be so worth it.

dwighttk 9y ago
yes yes Let's encourage people to bang on bridges with sledgehammers totally worth it
- logfromblammo 9y ago
  If you don't design your bridge with the expectation that some yahoo may one day try to bang on the cables with a sledgehammer, you aren't doing your job as an engineer. If it is possible, someone will eventually do it. But the sledgehammer thing is likely insignificant compared with a fully-loaded dump truck crashing into any particular piece of your bridge. So I trust the competence of the engineers that design suspension or cable-stayed highway bridges to the point that I would not worry about someone--or 88 different someones--trying to play one of those bridges like a piano. Or at least I wouldn't worry about the structural integrity of the bridge. I might worry about the quality of the "music".
cannam 9y ago
"Human Harp is a clip-on instrument that transforms suspension bridges into giant harps" http://dimainstone.com/project/human-harp/ http://dimainstone.com/project/human-harp/
- dom0 9y ago
  That's actually not using the bridge as an instrument... the little boxes measure how you pull on the wire and send that data to a synthesizer. That's why it sounds so diverse.
rsync 9y ago
"I bet you could tune the designs so the cables could be played like the strings of a harp." This exists: http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/infrastructure/a20082/route-66-musical-highway/ http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/infrastructure/a2... There are a few of them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_road https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_road