Visualizing sound was a 2m tall spectrum analyzer that took an input from a wireless microphone and displayed the sound as a series of 32 tubes of light. Each tube represented a different frequency band, and the width of the light in each tube corresponded to the amplitude of that frequency in the sound.
There were also a few other modes we built to help explain the movement of sound waves and the difference in frequencies.
The piece was created as a way to help children and adults attending the Great Exhibition Road Festival in London to understand the physics of sound and how it can be visualized. It was also a way to encourage people to think about the relationship between art and science, and how tapping into different senses can create art that is unique and beautiful (e.g. Beethoven, after losing his hearing, composed using a wooden rod's vibrations).
I led the mechanical, electronics, programming, and firmware build of the piece, while Zayna Ahmed focused on the visualizations, sound processing, and overall design.
The Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 and the Big Ideas Organization funded the creation of this work.
While working on the main mount that holds the lights, we needed to ensure that each hole was exactly offset by 30 degrees, from its neighbor. In order to mark and drill these holes I created a simple jig with alignment pins that would ensure the correct spacing and angle for each hole.
I was also building this part of the sculpture during a week when the metalshop was closed, so I had to get creative with a makeshift drilling setup.
After spending a day repeating to myself "only a poor craftsman blames their tools" and listening to an audiobook, I finally finished drilling out 32 holes in the main mount.
In hindsight, I probably should have just waited for the metalshop to open, but I was on a tight schedule and wanted to keep making progress.
The rest of the build went fairly smoothly. The electronics were fun - since they were spinning we needed to provide power through a slipring, and since the slipring would not be able to preserve the delicate signals we're sending to the LEDs, I ended up putting an ESP32 inside of the rotating assembly and sending the packets wirelessly to it. This had the added side benefit of a wireless microphone input that we could hand to festival attendees to interact with the piece.
The piece was a huge hit at the festival and we had a lot of fun interacting with attendees and explaining the science behind the piece. (Also tons of shrieking children attempting to light up the highest frequency tubes hahaaaaa).
