A project I worked on the summer of 2025 was an automated music box! I've always seen videos and photos of wonderful mechanical music machines, like fairground pipe organs!

I got a simple paper tape music box, and I determined the dimensions of the gears it used, so I could 3D print a custom gear to connect to the original gear train. I was originally thinking about creating the entire thing out of 3D printed parts, but I realized it would be a lot easier to prototype using Lego (which I still have a lot of!) so the gear I designed had a hole to fit around a Lego Technic axel! I ended up loving the look of the Lego so much that I decided to keep it in the final design! I also printed some custom Lego pieces to clamp some plates onto a wooden frame, and I printed some Lego compatible gears!

I also wanted to make it a bit of an art piece, in the bottom half I wanted to create the effect of "waves" using popsicle sticks on a crank shaft and a slider, each offset by a little bit. The wave mechanism was connected by a belt and pulley to the rest of the music box mechanism!

I wanted to make the music box wall powered, so I took apart a Lego Power Functions motor that was acting up, and I wired it to a buck-boost converter to control the voltage from a wall power supply. By changing the conversion ratio in the buck-boost converter, the speed or tempo of the song can be changed!

The first song I punched into the paper tape was a bit of the song "Murph" from Interstellar!

My music box project shows my ability to plan out a project and commit to a design, and decide and complete a project within a specific timeframe, as I only had two months to work on this project before I headed back to school!