As part of a high school senior capstone project, I designed a turntable to see how vinyl music could be made more accessible.
I wanted to make the turntable as simplified visually and functionally as possible. This involved using a simple two-color color scheme, creating components constrained to basic, geometric forms, and reducing the number of parts. I designed the turntable to operate solely at 33.33 RPM and turn on and off with the twist of a large knob. With these decisions, I aimed to create an inviting and intuitively-understood turntable.
Though not fully finished, the grand goal of this project was to create a kit that anyone could put together. With this in mind, I sourced cost-effective commercial components. The twelve non-electronic components are entirely 3D-printed. Everything connects with fourteen screws and self-threaded holes. All in, the turntable costs roughly $55 to build.
And while this turntable might not have the greatest audio quality, that's not the point. The idea is to give people a user-friendly, relatively low-budget way to mess around with vinyl music. See a demo of the turntable at my school project showcase here.
