It Started With an Idea…
If you know me…you know I love music. I spent over 120k minutes last year on just Spotify. I eat with music, I sleep with music, I walk with music, I workout with music, I drive with music, i could keep going but then you’d go to the next project, but you get the point. When I thought about what my project would be…I knew it had to be personal, alas, I made a speaker
Then Research…
Because I didin’t know what the f*** I was doing, but I dove in head first. I questioned everything. What is sound? How does it travel? How does a speaker make sound? What are it’s components? I spent nearly 2 months seeking answers, scrapping reddit, studying youtube until I felt I had a sufficient awareness to move forward with the project.
I found many good resources and will share them at the bottom. Check out this GIF, it explains the pieces of a driver (the cone that is responsible for pushing the air to make sound).
Then Sourcing…
I understood the sport…now it was time to build my team.
Quickly, it became clear that there were a lot of directions that I could go in when constructing a speaker, from driver combinations, to the various electronics.
After balancing price quality, I landed on a full range driver (meaning it covers ~100 to 20k hertz), with an amplifier that allows me to stream from my laptop. I found a box design created by the driver manufacture and it called for a port, so I added that as well. Here is the box design.
Then Woodworking…
Once everything came, it was time to build! I went out and purchased wood, went to the Sandbox in Iribe to begin the construction. I cut and glued the sides together, drilled holes for the driver and port, and spent time sanding down the edges to ensure that everything stood evenly and looked polished. Gordon, the manager of the Sandbox, was a HUGE help in the creation of this speaker, providing guidance and support along the way. The building phase was, without a doubt, the most rewarding part of the entire project. I entered the workshop with absolutely no woodworking experience, and I left with a fully functioning speaker.
Here is a quick video of me drilling the holes for the driver screws.
Et Voila!
*Exhales Deeply
This speaker would not have been completed without the many people who took time out of their day to help bring this project to what you see today. I thank my mother for helping to get the materials; Ray and Bobby for sharing insights and experiences from building their own speaker; Gordon, Liam, Astrid, and the rest of the Sandbox crew for assisting in the woodshop; and Prof Feldman for holding me accountable!