Laser music: BYU electrical engineers use light to beam songs across a room - BYU News Skip to main content
Intellect

Laser music: BYU electrical engineers use light to beam songs across a room

Use light to transmit music across a room – that’s the challenge for students in a BYU electrical engineering class.

Each semester, classes resume the challenge of improving on previous designs. At one point, their device had to be plugged into an outlet to work, then the students figured out how to make it battery powered. This semester, the students made it compatible with any music player.

The current model, known as free space optical transmission device, can beam “Party Rock Anthem” or any song from anyone’s iPod to a receiver and speakers up to 20 feet away.  Its battery life is more than two hours.

“Seeing everything come together at the end, working even better than we expected, was really cool,” said senior electrical engineering major Jana Sardoni, who has already accepted a job offer from Intel to design processors.

Sardoni’s team produced the winning design. Their device ran the longest without recharging and also added an LED display that indicated battery life.

“This project gives them experience in building to a customer’s desired outcome,” said Aaron Hawkins, who taught the class with fellow electrical and computer engineering professor Stephen Schulz. “A concrete product where we say to them, ‘Here’s how it is supposed to work, to these specifications. You go find your own solutions.’”

The students built a transmitter, which plugs into an audio device, and a receiver, which plugs into speakers. The transmitter directs a laser to flash in a distinct pattern. They also created a circuit that can compute the flashes of light and translate them into a recognizable format for the speakers.

“They gave us a little bit more flexibility in this class,” said Matt Seamons, another member of the winning group. “After we’d learned a lot of the foundational things, the flexibility allowed us to think more innovatively. We showed that we could go out into the industry and be ready to hit the ground running and be successful.”

Greg Loveland and Raymond Barrier were also on the winning team. 

Writer: Matt Hopkins

Related Articles

data-content-type="article"

BYU’s 2025 awards season honors student standouts

May 15, 2025
Rise and shout! Across various disciplines, BYU students have been recognized for their world-class accomplishments.
overrideBackgroundColorOrImage= overrideTextColor= promoTextAlignment= overrideCardHideSection=false overrideCardHideByline=false overrideCardHideDescription=false overridebuttonBgColor= overrideButtonText= promoTextAlignment=
data-content-type="article"

Student inventors help BYU rank as a top U.S. university for newly-issued patents

May 12, 2025
Brigham Young University was just ranked as one of the Top 100 universities in the nation for most issued patents. But the new ranking from the National Academy of Inventors isn’t the story for BYU; it’s who holds the patents.
overrideBackgroundColorOrImage= overrideTextColor= promoTextAlignment= overrideCardHideSection=false overrideCardHideByline=false overrideCardHideDescription=false overridebuttonBgColor= overrideButtonText= promoTextAlignment=
data-content-type="article"

BYU research: Your beliefs about money may reveal clues about your relationship

May 07, 2025
Everyone holds their own beliefs about money – what it’s for, how much we need and how to use it. But a new study from researchers at BYU says personal beliefs about money also shape the health of your relationship.
overrideBackgroundColorOrImage= overrideTextColor= promoTextAlignment= overrideCardHideSection=false overrideCardHideByline=false overrideCardHideDescription=false overridebuttonBgColor= overrideButtonText= promoTextAlignment=
overrideBackgroundColorOrImage= overrideTextColor= promoTextAlignment= overrideCardHideSection=false overrideCardHideByline=false overrideCardHideDescription=false overridebuttonBgColor= overrideButtonText=