I wanted to share our high school marching band project from the Fall 2023 season. My team and I were volunteers who helped design, build, and maintain some of the props for the band performances. This was our second year using Maker Pipe and I'm really happy with the quality and flexibility of this product. Importantly, everything had to be assembled before performances. Then, disassembled when finished. Many times, everything had to be transported, in some instances across the state, to distant competitions. Band performances on are football fields.

First up, a back view of the backfield banner frames. We had six 8ft x 10ft frames with color-printed vinyl wrapped around the front (facing the audience). They were positioned near the far sidelines of the performance fields. The year prior, we used the "conduit cover clips" around the perimeter of these frames. While that was ok, a breeze would loosen those clips. We had to constantly tighten them up or else we would have wrinkles in the vinyl. They, along with the sandwiched vinyl material, were incredibly difficult to remove. This year, we went with bungee cord (high-volume, custom cut) to hold tension. This was better, efficient to assemble on-site, and lasted the entire season.

Rolling bases and pull handles helped roll these onto the field and position them correctly, then roll them off when finished. This year, we added screws to some of the critical T-connectors to ensure they wouldn't loosen. Sometimes these could make a quarter-mile round-trip from assembly areas, to the field, then back; things could loosen up. Tip: always carry spare hex T-Handles to torque down the screws.

Next season, we need to smooth out the corner wrinkles. The way the bungee cords tension the vinyl caused this loosening at the corners (visible below, upper left). The image shows a slight bowing in of the vertical sides of these frames, we'll probably add a horizontal cross-member (similar to the vertical one) to reinforce this.

Sideline frames in their standing position. The top, though hidden under the vinyl, is EMT connected with hinge connectors.

This cart held 8 sideline frames. Each frame was approximately 4ft x 8ft. Fully loaded, it was over 200lb. Those frames were similar to those above, with vinyl wrapped around and held with bungee cord material; on a smaller scale.

An innovation I came up with on the cart, while not visible in this photo, is two lateral rails underneath acting as a cradle. Those laterals have a length of PVC pipe, which acts as a roller bearing that would freely spin over the EMT. This made loading and unloading each frame much easier. Once loaded, the frames rested on the wooden cross-member over the casters, not on the rollers, leaving the rollers to freely move when the next frame was loaded or unloaded.

Here's the empty cart showing the PVC pipe "cradle"

Thanks to the team at Maker Pipe for personally giving us some ideas on our designs, the huge ideas book, and this community for making this project a success!