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Festival Sound Engineering

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Grades 6-860-75 minSource: Creative Dad Company

Teams design speaker placement for a mock outdoor stage, balancing full audience coverage against the screeching feedback loop that happens when a mic gets too close to a speaker.

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Prep: 15 minActivity: 40 min1 session~$2/groupOne table or a clear section of floorBeginner-friendly

Setup

Print or hand-copy the essential prompt for Festival Sound Engineering, then set out only paper, pencils, and the common or recycled items needed for one test. Use a tabletop representation whenever the original version mentions a room, specialized device, or digital tool; the learning comes from the decisions and evidence, not elaborate scenery.

Activity

  1. Define the central success test in Festival Sound Engineering and make a paper planning sheet for the inputs, actions, and expected result.
  2. Represent the system without electronics by using labeled cards, paper controls, tokens, a ruler, or a student acting as the device; follow the same cause-and-effect rules described in the project.
  3. Run at least three cases, including one difficult or unexpected case, and record positions, cue times, sound readings, and listening observations.
  4. Revise one rule, layout, mechanism, or decision after the failed case, repeat it, and explain with the recorded evidence whether the change worked.

Done when: The group has completed Festival Sound Engineering when it can pitch the final sound plan to a festival producer, pointing out the coverage map and how feedback was solved and point to the observation, measurement, comparison, or trial that supports its conclusion.

Materials

bluetooth speaker, phone with sound-level app, string, tape, graph paper, cardboard for scale model

Shown for the Quick Start version — switch tabs above to see what changes.

Disclosure: Materials links below go to Amazon. As an Amazon Associate, Creative Dad Company earns from qualifying purchases at no extra cost to you.

Steps

  1. Sketch a mock festival field and predict where sound will be too quiet or too loud based on speaker placement.
  2. Build a scale cardboard model of the stage and place mock speakers at the planned positions.
  3. Test volume levels with a phone sound-meter app across the field, hit feedback squeal when a speaker faces a microphone, and rearrange the layout to fix it.
  4. Pitch the final sound plan to a festival producer, pointing out the coverage map and how feedback was solved.

Standards it satisfies

  • NGSS · MS-ETS1-3

    Analyze data from tests to determine similarities and differences among several design solutions to identify the best characteristics of each that can be combined into a new solution to better meet the criteria for success.