E-SONIC is UCI’s Engineering-Symphonic Orchestra New Instrument Competition, where student teams design new playable musical instruments. Bubble Box is our team’s project within E-SONIC, using controlled bubbles and vortex structures inside a clear water chamber to create a playful audio-visual instrument. The project explores how a fluid phenomenon can be made repeatable, expressive, portable, and safe enough for public demonstration while remaining visually engaging and intuitive to experience.
Our current design uses a hands-free foot bellows to deliver an air pulse through tubing into a custom piston/vortex generation module mounted to a clear water tank. That air impulse is used to create repeatable bubbles or vortex structures that travel through the fluid and interact with a diaphragm-based sensing surface. A thin-film piezo sensor attached to the diaphragm converts the physical impact into an electrical signal, which can then be processed by a microcontroller and sent to a speaker and synchronized lighting. To develop the system, we are using CAD, 3D-printed adapters and enclosures, off-the-shelf pneumatic and acrylic components, and modular subsystem testing so that the air input, bubble generation, containment, sensing, and electronics can each be improved independently. Current verification methods include high-speed video, leak and containment testing, and bench-scale sensor-to-audio testing to confirm that the effect is both measurable and repeatable.
So far, the project has produced stakeholder and requirements documentation, subsystem trade studies, proof-of-concept plans, a detailed parts list and bill of materials, preliminary CAD, and bench-scale testing of the sensing and electronics chain. The current concept has been narrowed to a modular architecture consisting of a foot-driven air input, piston-based vortex or bubble generator, clear tank, diaphragm plus piezo sensing interface, and audio/lighting output. By the end of the project, we aim to deliver a functional Bubble Box prototype that demonstrates repeatable fluid excitation, reliable sensing, safe water containment, and an integrated audio-visual response. Final deliverables will include the working prototype, CAD and fabrication documentation, verification test results, poster, and presentation materials.