📂 projects/boombox/
Boombox
I'm lucky to work at the makerspace that I do, because my boss has some interesting work proposals for me from time to time. This time, it was to design a human-sized tank-driven boombox that can be electronically controlled around to blast music. The aim is to mount the audio hardware from the makerspace to an aluminum frame that uses dual 2000 watt motors and Porsche Taycan battry modules to drive the hardware around. A user will play their favorite music on the boombox, and then drive it around campus, or into downtown to cause chaos.
The fun part about this project is that it gave me an excuse to learn CAD. For the longest time, the only CAD I knew how to do was KiCAD and openEMS. Now, I can finally design mechanical parts that I can 3D print, or otherwise model for sizing. The CAD software I chose to use was FreeCAD because it works perfectly on Linux. Learning how to design with parameters in FreeCAD's spreadsheet tool was very satisfying, because I can easily change things about the boombox on the fly with minimal effort.
At this point, the only work that's been done for this project has been the CAD modelling, because the aim is to measure twice, cut one with buying parts, since a lot of these parts are from McMasterr-Carr, and will end up being pretty pricey. The next steps involve assembly, and some machining of aluminum mounts for various hardware, such as the drive caster wheels, the motor, batteries, motor controller, speakers, etc. Then, I will be programming the boombox as a whole. I plan to use a cellphone or something similar to control the device so that digital music files can be uploaded, and the user can control the boombox into town, all the way from the makerspace, without even needing to accompany the boombox.
A Git repository for the project files can be found Here.
