Acoustics education through digital fabrication
John Granzow · The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 2019
The integration of makerspaces in academic settings presents an opportunity to apply principles of musical acoustics to the rapid production of sounding objects. Digital fabrication accelerates the design cycle and alters what can be accomplished in the scope of such educational labs. Acoustic principles motivate parametric 3-D designs using open-source CAD software. These models can then be materialized through digital fabrication to empirically test numerical predictions; they also serve as prototypes for new instrument design and sound art. This paper reviews such a course offered at the University of Michigan in the Performing Arts Technology program. Machine and software requirements are discussed as well as methods to combine acoustic problem-sets with contemporary fabrication methods.