The final dock was completed for Week 9. The dock was printed in two pieces and glued together. Internal supports were removed, but the grid on the bottom was kept to add support. Despite the high degree of difficulty of printing a large chamfered horn, the print was completely successful. The dock is shown below with the cased phone.
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| Dock print 3 |
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| Dock and phone |
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| Dock and phone |
The dock was tested in the same way as the case; 11 monotones ranging from C4-B6 were played at half volume and the loudness was recorded. This test was performed on the bare phone, the cased phone, and the cased phone in the dock. As expected, the cased phone was louder than the bare phone, and the cased phone in the dock was louder than the cased phone alone. The test again showed that, for some frequencies, the bare phone is actually louder than when amplified with a horn. However, for most frequencies, the horns amplify the sound, so the designs are considered successful. Figure 1 below shows the results of the monotone test.
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| Figure 1 |
Another test was performed to show the effects of amplification throughout a range of frequencies, as in music, since this is the main application of the case and dock. An arbitrary song was chosen and played for 30 seconds at half and full volume. The sound level was recorded by a meter 8 inches from the speaker, with an ambient loudness of 32 dB. This was repeated for the bare phone, the cased phone, and the cased phone in the dock. The results show that the horns significantly increase the sound output of music. The phone in the case and dock averaged 66 dB at max volume, which is significantly louder than the 55 dB reading of the bare phone at the same volume. Figure 2 shows the results of the experiment.
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| Figure 2 |
With the dock complete, the group will present their ten-week project in class on Tuesday. The project was successful in that a case and dock were printed that were both able to significantly amplify the factory speaker of an iPhone 7/8. However, if there were more time, the next step would have been to adjust the dock design so that it held the phone perfectly with no gaps; preventing sound from escaping before amplification would presumably increase the sound output. The dock also noticeably distorts the audio, a concept that would be investigated and minimized. Lastly, the case would be streamlined so that it could amplify sound and be more ergonomic. More time would have been invested in researching different materials to use in the case as well to make it shock absorbent and aesthetically pleasing.
