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IGEN 230 Capstone Project · 2023

The Ukebox

A second-year engineering design project — a physical ukulele-jukebox hybrid built for IGEN 230 at UBC.

Mechanical DesignPrototypingEngineering Design
Completed a full design-build-present cycle from concept to physical prototype as part of UBC Integrated Engineering year two capstone.
Presented the project via a formal poster session, communicating design rationale and constraints to peers and faculty.

The project

The Ukebox was a second-year engineering design studio project built for IGEN 230. The brief: design something functional, present it, defend the decisions. We landed on a ukulele-jukebox crossover - a physical device with mechanical and electrical components that combined the form factor of a jukebox with a ukulele-based musical mechanism. This was a 4 month project over a meagre 200 CAD budget. Fun times.

What it taught me

Early design projects are valuable in a specific way: you do not know enough yet to be afraid of the problem. You just build the thing, find out what does not work, and fix it. In the end, I didn’t really end up writing any complex algorithm to play songs (though we sure could with more time!), but learned more about electrical systems and buck converters and also scavenging old electronics to make things work.

The Ukebox prototype — the ukulele-jukebox hybrid built for IGEN 230

The Ukebox itself: a jukebox form factor around a ukulele-based musical mechanism.

Project poster

The Ukebox project poster from the IGEN 230 poster session

The poster we presented at the IGEN 230 session — design rationale, constraints, and the final build.