For my undergraduate senior thesis, I chose to explore the 3D printing of acoustic violins, and how material stiffness plays a role in tonality. After printing a proof of concept violin using a free model I found online, I performed force displacement tests with sample prints to correlate stiffness to a variety of factors and print settings. I then made modifications to the violin model and printed and assembled two more violins: one with plates seeking to mimic the stiffness of a wooden violin, and one with softer and denser plates.

Based off of a research paper that performed impact hammer testing of violins for frequency response, I designed and assembled my own impact hammer testing jig. By recording the sound of the impact made with the instrument and then passing it through an FFT, a frequency response chart was generated for each printed violin, and for a baseline wooden violin.