Cut a Record from a Tortilla

摘要

When Dwight Chia, a senior at the University of California at San Diego, saw a YouTube video of a record player spinning a tortilla, he decided to turn the joke into reality. Chia's hobby, creating 78 rpm acrylic records on a laser cutter, served him well. A record stores information as ridges along the length of each groove, and the extra grooves required when spinning at 78 rpm provide more data per second. That speed "turned out to be the key in getting discernible sound out of a tortilla," he says. Chia's record, made from an uncooked flour tortilla, can play a muffled "Mexican Hat Dance"-and it's edible.