Nanostalgia
Nanostalgia is based on a 1500% scaled iPod Nano Gen 5, and was built as a team of four for the 2025 Formlabs Hackathon.
My role was CAD and fabrication
The iPod has embedded speakers connected to an Arduino. By plugging in a USB into the side ports, one can queue a playlist of music. The touch wheel can be rotated and pressed to pause, play, and switch songs.
The front of the iPod has a two way mirror, allowing the user to see their reflection and see the LED lighting installed. The iPod was designed to have concealed yet easily accessible electronics, interactive controls, and a high-quality sound system. It is currently installed in the lounge of our living group!
Process
We CADded the outer frame, and printed it in 4 separate parts on a Formlabs 4L. The parts were then carefully sanded and epoxied together before being primed and painted.
The touch wheel was attached to a rotary encoder for the necessary functionalities. The touch wheel itself was FDM printed, with the necessary tolerances that it could be press fit into a rail, which allows it to spin freely.
The songs stored on the USB connect to an mp3 decoder, arduino esp32 nano and the two speakers.
Challenges and future improvements: The frame created was far heavier than it needed to be - in the future, to be more conservative of materials, we would hollow out the model more to decrease weight, and switch to a less brittle resin.
Thank you to the FormLabs team for providing the resources and funding to make this vision a reality!
