Final Project - Technology
RumblePhones consist of a pair of noise canceling -20 Db ear protecting headphones, two microphones, two vibration motors, an amplification circuit, and an Arduino Microcontroller. The microphones, mounted on the headphones themselves, will pick up sounds from the surrounding environment, and feed this data, after amplification, to the Arduino as an analog value. This value will be used to control the speed of two vibrating motors, mounted in the cups of the headphones themselves. This process translates the sounds of the surrounding environment into vibrations felt on the ear of the user.
After putting the device’s headphones on, the user will be invited to walk around the area the project is displayed, experiencing the sounds of their environment as vibration. A potentiometer on the RumblePhones will allow the user to adjust their sensitivity, allowing the translation of sound to vibration to be clear even in a loud environment.
The Parabolic Hand Mics consist of two small, directional, parabolic mics, to be placed in the users hands. The output from these microphones will be run through two sensitive amplification circuits, each with an independent volume adjustment, and then fed to a pair of headphones. The mic held in the left hand will be tied to the left channel of the headphones, and the one in the right hand to the right channel. The mics will, in a sense, become the users “ears”, and moving them about will alter what they hear, and the direction that they hear from. This experience should be evocative of how animals that can move their ear cups, such as cats or rabbits, perceive sound.