Play-A-Grill transforms bling into an MP3 player

Moving on with the times, the word ‘grill’ no longer means a piece of equipment that you use to cook meat in a certain way, and neither does it signify a verb. In fact, ‘grills’ these days can be referred to what rappers wear on their teeth – which is basically a gold or platinum piece of jewellery. I suppose it has something to do with the kind of wealth flaunting culture, but that aside, Aisen Chacin has come up with a singing grill – calling it Play-A-Grill. Aisen is an artist at Parsons The New School for Design in New York, where his Play-A-Grill creation is said to be able to transform jewellery into a tongue-controlled MP3 player.

Just how does Play-A-Grill work? For starters, it relies on bone conduction principles to play sounds, where vibrations on the teeth will be passed on to the ear drum via the skull. While this idea is not new, Chacin preferred to take the idea and present it in a fashionable manner. She embedded a vibrating motor that is hooked up to the headphone jack of an MP3 player located within a mould of her mouth, where the player’s controls will face downwards in order for the tongue to wield it with ease. I guess hearing the audio is the easy part, but learning how to control the Play-A-Grill with one’s tongue? That could prove tricky. I don’t think the Play-A-Grill is going to make it big if it were to be released commercially though.

Edwin Kee
Categories: Audio, Gadgets
Tags: mp3