BeethoVAN — Modular Concert Stages
Senior capstone project at SD Mines in partnership with the Rushmore Music Festival — a travelling orchestra that brings classical music to rural communities across the Northern Great Plains. The team designed and built the BeethoVAN: a fully outfitted cargo trailer serving as a mobile concert hall with indoor/outdoor performance capability, instrument storage, HVAC, solar power, and AV systems. My primary contribution was the modular aluminum stage system. No off-the-shelf stage had the combination of features required, so the stages were designed and built from scratch. Work included determining all structural loads, hand calculations for beam deflection using composite beam theory to account for the wood deck and aluminum frame acting together, and FEA to validate the results. The stages feature height-adjustable legs with cam lock handles fabricated from laminated sheet metal and modified McMaster components — built to be as cheap as possible while still locking securely under load. Also welded and assembled the articulating piano platform: an actuator-driven frame that stores the grand piano vertically during transport to minimize string detune from road vibration. The BeethoVAN began touring in summer 2023 and has been covered by SD Mines and the Rapid City Journal.
