Darcy Milligan

The reverse-engineering and small-scale manufacturing of the Parker Fly vibrato spring, advised by Professors Fiona Levey and VJ Manzo. This project replicated and improved upon the existing Parker Fly guitar spring by designing a bending machine and heat treatment protocol to match the company’s specifications.  

This finalist MQP at Worcester Polytechnic Institute was presented at the ASEE Northeastern Conference in 2024.

A reimagination of one of Les Paul's inventions titled the "Les Paulverizer". In this rendition, a console attaches to a guitar body and sends MIDI information to a computer (via USB) in order to play audio clips and adjust parameters inside of a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) with an easy and hassle-free setup process. 

The Paulverizer is now on display in the Les Paul exhibit at the Waukesha County museum in Wisconsin.

Based in the makerspace at Academic City University College in Accra, Ghana, I worked alongside Kerry Bushway and Hannah Zink to create a pinball machine installation. It features sound-reactive lights that run through an Arduino and LED strips, along with complex cut designs using a laser cutter.

A musical robot that controls the volume flow rate of water into eight flasks where the amount of water in each flask generates a specific pitch. The robot then is able to strike each flask with an exciter, which is programmed into Max to be able to play off of MIDI data.