A piece of history has been brought back to life at Wayne State College. Associate Professor Joshua Calkin has recreated an old medieval instrument, via 3-D printing, called the serpent which has not been used for hundreds of years.

The instrument was used during the Renaissance period. It is also a predecessor to the tuba and was made out of wood and wrapped in leather.

“I happened to be online and I saw that there was a guy who took one of the really old ones and scanned it and he offered the plans for free,” Calkin said. “I’m a tuba player so naturally I jumped at the chance to do it and all
I did was download and took it to the library and asked them if they could do it.”

Calkin took his replica plans to the IRC, which is located in the library. From there Austin Kneifl, a student worker, took over the project.

“The instrument was sliced into 15 pieces, but some were too big, so I had to slice those larger pieces in half,” Kneifl said. “After that it came out to about 25 total pieces.”

Each piece that was 3-D printed took about seven hours to complete and was done overnight so all they had to do was check on the piece the next morning. After all of the pieces were made and assembled it took a little over a month for the entire project to come together.

Calkin’s background in music stems from an early age of starting out in band playing the trumpet.

He started in the fourth grade in New Jersey, where he is originally from.

“I started at trumpet then I moved up into euphonium and then to tuba and trumpet,” Calkin said. “From there I decided early on that I wanted to make a career out of music.”

The instrument is in Calkin’s office and is still resting until all of the pieces are perfectly set together. Calkin said he is still learning how to play the instrument and is excited and happy with the outcome of his project.