A Duplo noise-dampening panel

[ The campaign ended 2018.03.04 – The statistics are here ]

Collecting Duplo-bricks

– through a Crowdfunding campaign

Goal

Build an acoustic panel out of Duplo blocks.
Donate this noise-dampening panel to a local school, or hospital. (open for ideas!)

Why?

It is a fun thing to do,
it has not been done before,
it is a piece of art, awakening senses (as well as peaceful to watch)

The design is a sound-dampening panel, a fully working panel, thus making a room much calmer. How the panel works – please read further here below.

My personal motivators:

bringing inspiration to our young challengers of the future
giving back to community
as this would be the first of its kind => Guiness world record 2018 (?)

To give back to the community is a big one for me. This means that once the panel is complete, it will be donated to a school that is interested. My hope is that it will spark imagination and inspiration within learning. Last, but not least, Math and Physics.

Therefore;

I ask for your participation in collecting the necessary pieces. Sharing this message to a fellow builder is a big help!

Where to send your Duplo bricks to:

Martin Andersson
Akselinpolku 7 F
02230 Espoo, Finland

The crowdfunding platform, Mesenaatti

Find the official crowdfunding page here

What?

The noise-cancelling panel is to be built from Duplo-blocks, and when complete, the panel shall be donated to a local school. To the joy of kindergarden kids age 3 up to baccalaureate level students age 18.

Size of the Duplo-panel is planned to be 29×38 (columns, rows) bricks large. 12 bricks high. If to assign each tower-height its own color, here is an example:

How it works

( Thank you for wanting to learn more )

Contrary to traditional sound-dampening where a thick material traps noise, a PRD panel is based on a mathematical formula and diffuses soundwaves. Diffusion is a form of reflection, where a soundwave is broken down by reflecting it in many smaller waves. This happens with a panel with a very uneven surface. PRD = Prime Root Diffuser.

A piece of art

In addition to being a fully working sound-cancelling panel, the panel will be a celebration of colors. Truly a piece of art to enjoy, and hopefully an inspirational piece of work.

To be made up of the classic, smallest blocks, commonly called 2×2 by the keen builders – to whom I count myself. 2×2, if calculating the ‘dots’ on the top 🙂

Technical data

The panel is made up from approximately 6.500 pieces. 6.456 to be exact, if purely built from 2×2 blocks. I do accept all pieces that have 2 rows-of-dots, and no round corners.

The panel will look quite much like the one pictured below, however in comparison the Duplo-blocks are 1/4 as small in regards to the face surface area.

The face area of the tower-pieces in the below pictured wood panel are 50×50 mm.

More technical details further below.

Why go Crowdfunding?

New Duplo pieces are quite expensive, as brand-new.
Having been in contact with brand Headquarters (Denmark), sales and design departments, as well as local importer in Finland, the message is that donations by the maker are limited to kids in need. (Which is understandable, and honorable)
Second-hand Duplo pieces are not cheap.

Intention, in a nutshell

Collect as many 2-row blocks as possible.
Go-live date of campaign: 25.12.2017 – – duration 6 weeks.
Surplus blocks – should this happen – will go to local kindergardens.
With funds from sold acoustic products buy the remaining blocks – if necessary.
Build the diffusor panel i a nearby garage – hopefully heated, it is mid winter.
Document the building process & share the progress.
Host a funders-only-party with the (ready) Duplo-diffusor-panel present.
Arrange for the donation to the local school to take place.

About the parts

If someone wants to send their whole collection – I will be accepting all parts. God knows these may come handy in an another project. I shall not ask you to sort through your collection for the specific parts I am looking for 🙂

Thank you for reading this far!

The layout

Mentioned further below are the planned dimensions. The planned layout is a panel made out of 2×2 blocks – single color blocks, each tower height defined by its specific color.

12 variations of colors is not difficult to find – however this may be difficult to collect. Therefore, here below are 3 other ideas. Vote which one is the best! (link after all photos) The whole panel is roughly the size of 3 x 2 of these green boards – the below photos are test layouts only.

1) The planned case – single color towers – 2×2 dots

2nd option – rainbow color spectrum – 2×2 dots

3rd option – single color towers – 4×4 dots

4th option – rainbow color spectrum – 4×4 dots

Let’s have a voting! (a new window will open)

More Technical data

Frequency range of echo mitigation : 766 – 5380 Hz.

Approximate measurements, rounded to nearest whole centimeter.
(L x W x D) 122 x 93 x 23 cm.
Total number of towers (wells) of Duplo blocks : 1056

Interested in the math? Please see ‘Technique’ in menu, and ‘Diffusing solutions’

Variations of tower heights: 12
Height and width of a standard Duplo 2×2 block : 1.91 x 3.19 cm
Height of one tower, if stack all blocks into a single tower : 123 meters.

Weight? I haven’t yet come around to calculate the weight.
Although this panel is intended for children’s’ joy and their environment, the panel will be out of immediate physical reach – look but don’t touch.
The planned place of installation is a large hall, in the middle of a short end wall, accessed only through a balcony ledger (locked) thus inaccessible and people are safe in case the panel were to fall.

Video, about the crowdfunding project

Video, opens up new tab / window.

The principal physics

The principal physics behind this panel boils down to the same way a bottle makes a tone when air is blown across the open end of the bottle. And how the tone – frequency – changes depending on bottle size, or length inside the bottle. Add some water, and you get a higher tone.

This is know as the Helmholtz effect, and this sound dampening panel works on this system principles – just in reverse.

Share!

Share with your friends and colleagues.

Print the A4 info-page about this campaign. Place it at the coffee-table or on company info-board? Here in both Swedish – English, and Finnish – English.

For more information, check out these links: