This week has been very productive. A power plan has been successfully created that is safe, reliable, and has good headroom. The interrupter, oscillator, and trigger have all been finished and are ready to be experimentally tuned (given that component tolerances must be considered, we have had to leave a couple things adjustable currently). The coil design process is most of the way done, the only thing left in theoretical design is to design the primary coil’s supporting circuitry, and then an enclosure for the circuitry itself. We think that this shouldn’t take too long and will be finalized in time for our Design Review Presentation.
A – Written by Jack) We’ve designed our product in consideration of welfare in the sense that it gives easier access to simple, affordable, visually presentable education to classes conducted with a low budget. I personally had the experience of volunteering at rural programs in China where music classes were conducted in the cheapest way possible. The teacher would write the notes on a chalk board and oftentimes no instruments could be played along while the students were singing. Our Musi-coil provides an option for a widely compatible speaker that is also educationally engaging, which can be used in music classes as well as physics, engineering, and even chemistry classes. Therefore, I consider our product to be not only an affordable teaching tool, but also one that achieves engagement levels unattainable by speakers costing 10x more.
B – Written by Jayson) The Musi-coil addresses social factors by making high-voltage physics accessible and engaging to diverse audiences. By enabling music playback through plasma discharge using a 3.5mm audio jack, we transform an intimidating technical demonstration into an inclusive education experience that creates emotional connections and inspires curiosity about STEM fields across different age groups and backgrounds. This design reflects our commitment to public science literacy and making advanced engineering concepts both approachable and memorable, potentially inspiring future engineers.
C – Written by Caleb) Our product is designed with economic factors in mind for both the educator and the hobbyist. Almost all internal parts are both affordable and readily available and the housing is 3D printed, thus production costs are low. Its compact size and relatively rectangular profile mean that distribution costs can be kept low, thanks to low wasted space in shipping organization. This means that final cost is kept low. As an educational device, this product is significantly cheaper than a large number of products meant for demonstration, especially ones with such versatility. While cheaper products that are similar to ours do exist, they are not nearly as impressive as outputs and are typically too small to be used in a demonstrative settings. In regards to the hobbyist, our device may seem expensive considering the aforementioned cheaper alternatives, however, there is not a widely available product which performs similar to ours on a similar scale of size or electrical output, and as such, our economic design means that our product, while not inherently affordable as a desktop collectible, is very reasonably priced in terms of its capabilities.