1) Tyler Woodruff conducted a senior project experiment to test different soundproofing materials. He built small speaker boxes to test acrylic, cardboard, and egg crate material. 2) Through testing different decibel readings, Tyler found that the acrylic box reduced sound levels the most, from 105 to 85 decibels. The cardboard and egg crate materials did not make a difference compared to the acrylic. 3) The project helped Tyler learn about his strong work ethic and communication skills, and confirmed his interest in pursuing a career in sound engineering.

1. Tyler Woodruff
Senior Project Speech
I have been playing assorted instruments for about eight to nine years now. These
instruments include Guitar, bass guitar, and drums. I normally practice every day and work on all
my skills as much as I possibly can. However, this is not always possible because I always run
into the same problem. This problem is that not everyone else in my house and or other place
that I may be playing or practicing my instruments appreciates the noise that they make. This
problem has perplexed me for many years and I researched many ideas on how to stop this
madness that my music ensues. I found one idea that seemed like the ultimate do it all project to
stop all the noise and keep the family happy. This Idea was soundproofing. Soundproofing,
unlike sound absorbing or sound deadening, is the act of completely blocking out or keeping in
all sound that is emitted from a particular source. This is unlike sound absorbing, which is the act
of absorbing some sound in order to make it quieter yet not completely gone. This is also
nowhere close to sound deadening, which is the act of capturing air pressure waves in order to
take some of the noise out of the entire sound; sound deadening can also be described as added
more sound in order to overdue the original sound and just make one white noise style sound.
After learning about the different types of procedures for making less noise I decided that I
wanted to build a small room for my drums and amps for my guitars that I could practice in, and
when it came time to decide on what I wanted to do for my senior project I jumped right on the
idea of building a soundproof room for my instruments. However, when I looked at the price

2. range for doing something like that, the idea was immediately thrown out. This whole ordeal
made me determined to find out which way of sound proofing is the best by making a smaller
model of what I was originally going to do so that I could test the differences in decibel ranges.
Through my research in my research paper I found three test subjects; no soundproofing
as a control, an acrylic box, soundproofing layered cardboard material, and egg crate material.
With my research paper I decided that in order to fully understand which material would work
the best and why, I needed to know how sound worked not just in nature but specifically how it
worked when put up against different soundproofing surfaces and materials. Through my
research I found out how sound is measured in decibels mostly. And I researched the specifics on
how the human ear perceives the change in sound level. The information that I found on this
certain subject matter particularly caught my attention. This information caught my attention
when I learned that a change in ten decibels up or down is a huge change in human perception. A
change in ten decibels up is equivalent to going from talking to yelling. And in a soundproofing
standpoint a change in ten decibels is going from hearing people talk clearly from another room
to hearing the faint bass noises in their voices and not being able to make out words. Through my
research I also found a ton of information on the physics of how sound works. I found out that
sound is a wave and has to travel through a medium such as air or a material. I also found out
that sound can just travel through any medium; the medium its traveling though has to be thinner
than the wavelength of the sound wave. This is why the muffled sound that you hear first is
normally the lower notes when you’re getting closer to something that it loud. That is because
their wave length is longer. I chose in my project to challenge these lower note frequency’s
because these are the ones that are hardest to tackle and if you can bloc them you can defiantly
block the high frequency’s. This knowledge also helps me get ahead on what I need to be doing

3. to start training to be a sound engineer. The physics of sound and the knowledge of sound
proofing are directly related to sound engineering. It is literally their job description. I plan on
perusing this career later on in life. Since I plan on pursuing this as a career later on in life I
thought this would be a great opportunity to do this project now to get a little taste of what I want
to do for the rest of my life.
In my project I tested three different materials in order to see which material would work
the best to help sound proof a small set of speakers. The materials I choose to do this include;
acrylic, cardboard soundproofing material, and egg crate. My thoughts at the beginning of this
experiment were that the cardboard would be the most effective mainly because it was designed
to be a soundproofing material. My project facilitator, John Mercure, helped me decide on what
thickness of the cardboard to use and what types of acrylic and egg crate to use. My facilitator
taught me a ton of important things in dealing with sound proofing along with designing and
building during the whole process of my senior project. He owns his own specialty design
company in which they design and fabricate and build complicated architectural structures. This
makes his area of expertise just what I needed in order to help me build the perfect model to test
my experiment on. Through his area of work John Mercure has to deal with a lot of jobs that
require complex audio designs and certain specifications on whether or not the area needs to be
sound proof. With my facilitator we went through the first step of any major project, intense
planning. We started out drawing all the possible designs for the smaller inner box that holds the
speakers. We decided that around 2 feet long 7 inches high and 10 inches wide was the perfect
dimension for it. This box was designed to hold two 8 inch sub woofers. After designing this box
we then worked for multiple days doing and redoing the design for the outer box which would be
actual box used for soundproofing. This box took a lot of work and caused a lot of complications

4. mainly because we needed to design a box that wouldn’t rattle too much with the vibrations from
the speakers and it still needed to be able to hold itself together without being to heavy. We also
ran into the problem of how to see what is going on with the project if it is completely sealed off
from view. We ending coming up with a brilliant idea to use all high end acrylic which has a
very high density content therefore it does not vibrate that well thus keeping sound from coming
through and it is extremely sturdy. Once we designed both of these boxes we then spent a day
and a half gathering all the needed materials to finish the project. After that we spent two full
days working on the smaller speaker box. First we gathered the wood, which we used all zebra
wood. Zebra wood is a form of coated MDF or medium density fiberboard. We used zebra wood
for the speaker box mainly because it is a good solid wood that is very dense. The density in the
wood helps trap the vibrations and amplify them. Without the box for the speakers, the speakers
would barley work. After completely finishing the speaker box we then moved on to the box
outer soundproofing box. This box we made out of high end acrylic. We used this high end
acrylic because it’s clear for one so that you can see the inside of the project. We also used this
acrylic because it has a low vibration rating. When we got all the pieces of the acrylic shell cut
we then sanded everything down to be very smooth so it will fit together extremely well. After
fitting everything together we then put it all together we some extremely adhesive silicon tape
that is used seal things together with an air tight seal. The reason we needed an air tight seal is
because if air gets out then the sound can leak and with that you have a defective soundproofing
device. After fitting everything together we then wired everything us and tested everything out.
Once every part of the experiment was set out and tested we then began the actual experiment
testing. The sound I used for the testing was 4 different notes that all went on for about 4 seconds
each. The control test where to speaker box was by itself gave a reading of 105 decibels on the

5. decibel reader. This shows that with no soundproofing the speakers are pretty loud. When we put
the speakers in the outer box it immediately became quieter. The acrylic box dropped the decibel
rating to about 85 decibels. The cardboard and the egg crate did not make any difference at all
compared to the acrylic shell. This became a problem in our results. Some of the other obstacles
that we had to go through during this project were how not to directly transfer vibrations to the
outer box. The way we tackle this challenge was to put Velcro on the bottom of two metal
brackets and the mount them to the speakers and float them in the middle of the soundproof box.
Another problem we ran into was not having enough time to do anything be we overcame this
with really good planning and time management skills. Even though we had many obstacles we
still overcame them all.
Through this whole project experience I learned that if I really put my mind to something
I can really succeed and do well with that topic. This project made me realize that my own work
ethic is a whole lot better than I thought it was. This project also made me more aware of the
importance of communication skills because I had so many times where I would forget to call
my facilitator and it would cost me a whole day of working on my project and I would get
behind. This project also made me realize that I really enjoy the career path that this project
happened to be on. This project made me open my eyes more to the wonders of sound
engineering and it showed me how much I acutely like that certain field of study. This project
has shown me that after high school I still plan on going to Young Harris and getting a degree in
business and then transferring to an engineering college to get a degree in sound engineering.