2019 Galleries
The Spark Gallery pages are one of our most popular design destinations, with thousands of visitors each year. Check out some of the latest Spark entries, in the galleries below.
Galleries // 2019 Spark:Product // Ciari Guitars Ascender
Ciari Guitars Ascender
Finalist
Competition: Spark:Product
Designer: Matthew Poster - Senior Mechanical Engineer
Design Type: Consumer goods, appliances, Musical instrument
Company / Organization / School: Delve
Website: http://www.delve.com
Team Members: Matthew Poster, Jonathan Spangler, Joe Glaser, Chris Mittlesteadt, Randy Koplin, Jason Splan, Mike Guse & Jesse Darley
Traveling with a guitar, particularly on an airplane, can be challenging. Delicate guitars typically need to be checked in the baggage hold, leaving them vulnerable to damage. Prior attempts at travel guitars have still been too large to carry on a plane but smaller than a typical electric guitar, making them undesirable to play at gigs. The Ascender is a gig-ready, pro-player travel guitar. A concealed lever “detensions” the strings and unlocks a hinge at the neck, allowing the guitar to bend completely backwards as the strings follow the fold under light tension. The Ascender fits in a backpack that can slide under an airplane seat for easy travel. When you release the concealed lever, the string tension drops from 118 lbs down to just 3 lbs, which we’ve exhaustively tested to be just enough to rest the strings within the V-grooves as the neck folds without damaging the strings. In addition to medical device-level engineering, The Ascender was developed with noted luthier Jeff Glaser to ensure it delivers a professional-level playing experience for users.
