About

The love of music is common to all cultures and age groups from childhood onwards. Most people listen to music on the radio, on television, or on their smartphone from their music library or a streaming service. Some music lovers are called audiophiles, because they prefer to listen to music through high fidelity (or hi-fi) music systems. Audiophiles want to hear the music as clearly as possible, exactly as the musicians created.
 

Your task

Design an audio station, that is: a space for a music lover or audiophile to listen to their favourite music while they are comfortably at rest. Consider the music system and whether speakers or headphones will be used. Design the environment for the listener’s physical comfort too, as they will most likely want to listen for long periods of time. Construct a working model of your audio station and test it. Work on this project in a small team with a group of your classmates.
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The design thinking stages

Follow the five design thinking stages to ensure that you think of everything and do everything necessary in order to succeed in your design project. First, you must UNDERSTAND the design topic and the needs of the users. With that understanding, you can DECIDE what is important to your design solution and what is not so important. Then you CREATE to come up with ideas and improve them. Then you BUILD your chosen design idea in a physical form and improve it through trial-and-error. Finally, you TEST your built design idea to get the opinions of users. ​​​​​​​Use the methods from the Design Thinking for Schools website as you follow the design thinking stages.
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​​​​​​​Note for teachers

Doing student design projects that use electrical parts or microcontrollers such as Arduino requires:

• teachers who are able to supervise such a project;
• laboratories or workshops with electrical and electronic parts and tools;
• and students who are trained to work with electricity, tools, and equipment.

Read the guide for teachers on Safety for the BUILD Stage for Level III to safely supervise this design project.