Grill controller, one-half of the system (via Aisen Caro Chacin)
‘Grills’ (no not barbeque); you’ve seen them before, usually worn by rappers with loads of money. They’re actually pieces of jewelry, which are typically made from gold or platinum, that line the teeth giving the wearer ultimate street-cred (this is what I’ve heard anyway). It’s in that respect that a student from Parsons The New School for Design has taken the extremely expensive teeth prosthetic to a whole new level with ‘Play-A-Grill’.
Designed by Aisen Chacin, the grill is able to play MP3’s that lets the wearer hear the music through their teeth (teefis) rather than external speakers. This is known as bone conduction hearing. In fact, that’s how we hear under water (using the bone directly behind the ear). This isn’t anything new, as some Special Warfare soldiers and SWAT teams have been using specially made bone-conducting headphone systems (like the TCI SOBCH) for the better part of a decade or more. However, they don’t provide too much bling (unless you consider the ‘tacticool’ factor) as Play-A-Grill does. Aisen designed the prosthetic using a tiny MP3 player housed inside the teeth’s plastic housing. A small motor is connected to the MP3 player’s headphone jack which provides the bone-conducive sound that only the wearer can hear. For the moment, the user has a motor and wire hanging out of their mouth during use, not the coolest look.
If that wasn’t ingenious enough, she installed the MP3s controller to face downward so that the user could manipulate song selection and volume control using their tongue! It does have draw-back. Playing music too loud makes the housing vibrate which then acts like a speaker that lets other people hear the music coming from their mouth.
Demonstrating the other half of the system.
Cabe
