Hi, I’m Johnny! I’m in my 5th and final year of Product Design Engineering at the University of Glasgow and Glasgow School of Art. My project, which I have dubbed ear3, is a tool for grassroots music venues to monitor their sound from the perspective of hearing safety, following the WHO-recommended guidance.
The Vision
Noise-induced hearing loss is permanent, yet there is no legal requirement for venues to look after audience hearing at events. This device gives venues the ethical option of measuring how potentially dangerous their sound is, for pennies. As a designer, a key part of my process is speaking to real-world users to find out what they would expect from a product, rather than making decisions in isolation.
The Reality of Prototyping
A key milestone that I needed to reach early on was having a functional proof of concept prototype that I could take out into the wild and show people. Designing a device is one thing, but bringing it to life is a whole other kettle of fish. It involves buying components, writing code, wiring, testing, and then making it fit inside a printed enclosure. Working with expectation vs reality is a challenge of working from both ends, marrying idealistic concepts with constraints, such as dimensions and compatibility.
Iterating in the Wild
Above is a sketch of how I initially envisioned the device, and my first working prototype. At this stage, I did not want to use any permanent connections between components, so I was exclusively using female-to-female and female-to-male jumper wires, and even the power rail from the breadboard. The enclosure was massive, however, it worked, and I was able to take this to a venue near me and get some valuable feedback from their sound technician!
Levelling Up with the RS Student Fund
For my next iteration, I wanted to level things up, and this meant doing a lot of soldering. Luckily for me, the RS Student Fund allowed me to get my hands on a Weller soldering station, which allows precise temperature control, and a Stanley cable stripper. If I was to do this without these tools, making my next prototype would have been far more difficult and time-consuming. Iteration is key to my process, so even having access to a bottle of IPA for cleaning my print bed has saved me the heartbreak of 3D prints not adhering to the build plate.
Here’s the latest, much-improved iteration of the device.
At the time of writing, there’s still a way to go before we reach our final destination, but I hope this post was able to give some insight into the issue that I am tackling, how I’ve been going about it, and how RS has made the journey easier.
All the best!
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