This is a very small amplifier, meant to take the input of a wireless microphone and send it out to headphones at a reasonable volume powered by two nine-volt batteries. I built this for Susan, my girlfriend’s grandfather who was not the first member of her family I’d met, but certainly the one she talked the most about. As he got old he couldn’t hear very well, and although he could hear if you yelled at him in a sort of group of people, at family events he was as isolated as you could be in a room full of people. Too much noise, he couldn’t really see, couldn’t isolate sound with people talking about him. I know what I can do, I can build stuff, you know an instinct I have, and so I built this. […]

And you know we tried it out. It didn’t really work super well. I think it had a messed up solder joint and needed some tweaking. He said it sounded like everything was underwater. We took it home, resolved to try again, put it in a box, and not long after that he died before I got to do anything else with it, so this belongs in the museum of Projects Put on a Shelf and Then Rendered Moot.

This belongs in the Museum of Projects Put on a Shelf then Rendered Moot

Exhibited by Micah Gates

Transcript edited by Sarah Crawford