Real Life Speech Bubble Machine

Bubbles have been used to represent text in comic books and newspaper cartoons for many years, and as a metaphor for life’s temporary nature for much longer than that. To bring to life this imaginary representation, engineer/artist Kyung Yun Choi made a bubble machine that reacts to a person’s speech.

The bubble mechanism is inspired by the CNC Bubble Iris by Gordon Kirkwood, which like this speech device, uses a series of motor-actuated strings to form soap bubbles. Yun’s version, however, adds an electret microphone, and comes in a compact handheld package, enabling the user to hold it up to her or his mouth.

The machine listens to the user’s speech, varying the stretched soap film’s size depending on one’s speech pattern. When there’s a pause in the conversation, a fan inside then blows bubbles out of this film, creating a temporary representation of whatever was said.

A Teensy 3.2 provides processing power for the device, while a custom PCB handles mic amplification and motor control. Print, laser cutter files for the build are also available, along with a recipe for actually making the soap bubbles, giving you everything you need to produce your own speech visualization rig!