Sophomore year of high school, I took the Circuits and Electronics class at my school. After taking one year of introductory shops classes, I decided I really liked circuitry and chose to continue in this vein. The major project for this class was a speaker, with an attached audio visualizer. Aside from needing those basic components, we were offered a wide variety of add ons that we could choose to implement on our speaker. Before starting the design process however, we had to research sound and speakers to discover what the best materials, shapes and actual speakers would be best for our desired outcome. To complete the project, we had to build our own circuit boards, test them, solder real ones, and design the speaker housing, so this research was necessary to understand how our design would impact the sound quality. As with my lamp, I chose a simple, geometric design. Originally in my plan, I was going to have the speaker split in the middle, but as I built my prototype, I realized that I would not be able to fit my circuitry inside my design if it came apart, so I instead made it one cohesive shape.
Because the base shape of my design was simple, I chose to accentuate it with a laser engraving on the acrylic panels. I stuck with the hexagons, repeating and expanding the shape to play off the elongated hexagonal shape of the housing. This design added interest to the speaker without over complicating the minimalist, basic shape.
As for my circuit board, because my speaker was small, I chose not to add many of the additional features offered to us. I put both a battery pack and an external power plug, but was limited with what else I could fit with the space I had. Ultimately I decided that the add ons I could fit would not add to the design or fuctionality of my speaker, so I left them out.
The final piece of this project was an audio visualizer. We had to design, program, and build a device that would demonstrate which frequencies were most prominent in the music we were playing. On mine, each different color represents a different frequency, and how many LEDs are lit up shows how loud it is.
