Acme Bluetooth Speaker
Winter 24’
The acme bluetooth speaker aims to be an ordinary device, a speaker, encased in an experimental form. Pictured is a functional prototype which served to prove that creating an exoskeletal inspired casing was achievable through the introduction of a layer of mesh within 3D printed PLA layers. The layer of mesh connects each component of the speaker while creating a living hinge in between all five pieces.
The design not only affords the speaker to wrap around organic shapes, but also uses the two end pieces as a stand for the speaker to prop itself up on flat surfaces. The living hinge makes the speaker malleable even though the five casing components are very rigid geometric shapes.
For this project, the basis of the design was first conceptualized through some rough orthographic sketching. Then I constructed some rough paper models. The bulk of the iteration, however, was created in Rhino. Pictured above is the CAD file from my final design, depicting each iteration and minor edit that was applied to the final speaker.
I chose to ideate in this way largely due to the fact that I was modeling the speaker housing around a premade speaker component kit, so this allowed for greater accuracy for fitting the components into the housing I designed.
Pictured above are several possible forms the speaker can take on, thanks to the mesh living hinge embedded in the third layer of the 3D print.
