The Bluthes

The Build Team’s goal is to construct the booth itself which will house the apparatus required to connect the user to a mental health counselor via an Arduino coded and designed by the Tech team. As the booth is designed for students who are stressed, struggling mentally, or just needing someone to talk to, we set our sights on keeping the booth as private as possible. The walls of the booth will be constructed with soundproof panels with plywood lining the interior in order to provide the user with the privacy necessary.

The design of the booth will be of a cozy nature in an attempt to not overwhelm the user. Once constructed, the booth will be dressed in our project colors. This portion of the project is to be created in alliance with the Aesthetic team.

• Wood supplies

• 24 small wooden isosceles trapeziums, L15 x W4 x H4.2 Q6.6 cm

• 6 rectangular wooden planks, L90 x W8 x H4.2 cm

• 16 wooden right trapeziums, L94.2 x W8 x H4.2 Q90 cm

• 8 large wooden isosceles trapeziums, L98.4 x W8 x H4.2 Q90 cm

• 6 rectangular wooden panels, L90 x W1.7 H180 cm

• 1 door, L89 x W0.4 x H179 cm

• 1 curtain, L90 x Wn/a x H180 cm

• 4 square wooden planks, L10 x W10 x H188.4 cm

• 1 square wooden panel, L118.4 x W118.4 x H5 cm

Brainstorming

The Bluthes began with a long period of brainstorming. During this brainstorming, we looked at every aspect of the booth, from the requirements, the materials, to the design of the interior and exterior. We eventually arrived at our finalized mind-map which encapsulated everything we needed to take into consideration when constructing the booth.

Designing

With the brainstorming out of the way, we designed a paper sketch incorporating the necessary elements of the booth and certain aspects we would have liked to include. We started work on our first physical prototype, which we made out of PVC pipes. We had another session of brainstorming from the prototype, in regards to how we could improve upon our prototype. Once we had the improvements we desired grounded, we made a 3D sketch of what we’d like our booth to both look like and function (function in regards to its collapsible nature). As some team members were tasked with investigating materials, the rest were delegated the task of creating a final 3D sketch. We took into consideration the dimensions of the materials we would have to build the booth with. With all the previous efforts and work, we were able to start construction on the booth itself.

Soundproofing

Soundproofing can be done by absorption. In absorption, soundproofing is achieved by the reduction of the energy of the sound waves. When sound waves hit any surface, some get transmitted through the material, some get absorbed within the material and a percentage gets reflected (depending on the absorbing quality of the surface).

We need to consider the difference between the sound intensity that hits one side of an object (such as a wall, door, window, partition and so on) and the sound intensity measured on the other side, expressed in decibels (dB). When sound hits the surface of a material, some will be reflected, some will be absorbed by the material and some will be transmitted through it.

By determining the SRI (sound reduce index), the effectiveness of the element as an insulator can be assessed.

The human voice is most understandable between the range of 85-255 Hz, with average sound intensity level of 40 to 50 dB. We chose to use plywood as material because it has a greater absorption coefficient, means it has good absorption in sound. The absorption area is determined by the product of absorption coefficient and area in the receiving room in meter square.

We found that plywood gave the best cost to performance ratio for our use case, per our calculation.

Material Selection

• Plywood: Out team planned to build the booth structure solely using wood as it's cheap, easy to find and most of all somewhat of a good sound insulator. While acoustic plywood is better as it's a better sound wave dissipator, normal plywood is a cheaper, more accessible alternative.

• Acoustic Foam: The inside of our booth will be lined with acoustic foam panels to provide sound insulation. Foam panels are not in short supply at VIS so price and accessibility aren't factors.

In spite of there being many other materials like soundproof paint and soundproof wallpaper, we decided against such options as we preferred the material list to be at a somewhat attainable budget, of an accessible nature and something the team is familiar with. A few of our team members are/were in engineering and as a result are familiar with plywood.

Bibliography

Designing Buildings. (2020, November 2). Sound reduction index (SRI). Sound reduction index (SRI) - Designing Buildings Wiki. https://www.designingbuildings.co.uk/wiki/Sound_r...

Madaras, G. (2019, November 29). Sound Absorption - Create Comfort in Open Environments: ROCKWOOL Blog. Sound Absorption - Create Comfort in Open Environments | ROCKWOOL Blog. https://www.rockwool.com/north-america/advice-and...

Material for Sound Proofing and Sound Dampening: Phelps Industrial Products. Gaskets. (4AD). https://www.phelpsgaskets.com/blog/material-for-s...

Soares, C. (2015). Sound Reduction Index. Sound Reduction Index - an overview | ScienceDirect Topics. https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/...

Dominic. (2021, March 12). The 4 Most Soundproof Wood Options. Soundproof Central. https://soundproofcentral.com/soundproof-wood/.

plywood picture

The original goal for build team was to build two booths situated on either end of the NTU campus, although due to the spread of Covid-19 towards the tail end of our project, we were forced into a change of plans and had to opt for a digital deliverable. With that being the case, we decided to create a SketchUp featuring a digital walkthrough of the build process, along with a joint deliverable with the Aesthetics team which is the instruction manual you will have seen them present.

As mentioned above, we used SketchUp to design the 3D structure of our booth. The pictures shown above depict how the final product will look like when fully put together. Most of the parts are made with lugs built in which connect like Lego pieces in order to simplify the build process. Whilst not sketched, soundproof panels will be applied on the interior of the booth, and the floor will be made up of foam boards. Behind the door will also be a privacy curtain.

A link here to the Sketchup model we made!

First step： The first step is to fabricate the parts we need for the structure. Every component we need has been measured out on SketchUp and all we need to do is abide by the dimensions listed.

Second step: Step 2 will be done in collaboration with the Aesthetics team. They will be the ones taking charge of the colour scheme and any desired design on the side of the booth.

Third step : After every component has been painted, we will begin construction of the booth. With how the parts are made to fit together, not much hardware is required.

Fourth step: Once the booth has been constructed, we will begin lining the interior, hang up the curtain and insert the foam flooring. As our walls are already rather thick (8 cm), the most ideal foam panels would be those that are 3 cm thick, which luckily is rather accessible.

Technology team

The goal of tech team is to create a talking booth that connects to a counseling center by using Arduino systems.

Build team and tech team should work closely together because we need to make sure build's design and final booth matches the systems and circuit of tech team. One of the most important requirement was to make the booth waterproof, so systems that require electricity could work.

Technology team focused mainly on three systems:

1. Telecommunication System: a circuit that directly and only call a specific phone number to the counseling center.

2. Sanitization System : Install UV light to the ceiling of the booth. The UV light sanitizes the whole booth to make it covid free, protecting users from getting Covid. The build team has to work with tech team to discuss and design the exact location for the UV light in the booth. Make sure to build this part at the end so that we can make adjustments to it.

3. Lock System: In order to make sure that no one will come in when the UV light is on, we need the lock system to lock the door. Build team needs to purchase a door that allows tech team to install their lock system. Discussion is also required for installation and spaces of the IR sensor and Weight sensor.