University of Wisconsin Engineering Students Build Absurdly Huge Bass Cannon & Let It Kick It







University of Wisconsin engineering students built an absurdly huge real life ‘bass cannon’, aka the Giant Speaker, for the UW-Madison Engineering Expo.



“The speaker works best in the 5Hz – 50hz range,” they note. “The video does no justice for the vibration this thing produces. We found the resonant frequency of the building it was in which caused “annoyance” for people several floors above us in the opposite side of the building.”



In this context, ‘annoyance’ probably translates to ‘loss of bowel control’.



Inspiration came from Doc Brown’s speaker in Back to the Future.



Here’s a video of the Giant Speaker in action:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bI-Ztvx0w9I



This thing looks awesome – but we would love to see twisted purposes musicians could put this thing to.



The giant sub was built by a team of PhD students in electrical and mechanical engineering, as a fun side project on a limited budget.



The cone is made of polycarbonate and is 6 feet in diameter. The cabinet is 8ft x 8ft x 2ft or 128 cubic feet. Everything was custom made by the team, voice coil, magnet assembly, cone, surround, etc. Peak electrical draw is ~6kW.



A detailed history of the construction process may be found at the Ludois Labs site.