Firefighting is all about that bass.
A pair of George Mason University engineering students built a handheld fire extinguisher that puts out flames with low-frequency sound.
Seniors Viet Tran and Seth Robertson created the souped-up subwoofer for an advanced design class after they read about how the U.S. Department of Defense built a similar, stationary sound-based extinguisher.
But the team wanted to make a portable version. The 20-pound prototype cost them about $600, the school said in a statement.
Tran and Robertson tinkered with the kind of sound would be the best at battling a blaze. First they tried high frequencies, but those tests failed.
“It’s low-frequency sounds — like the thump-thump bass in hip-hop that works,” Tran said.
The duo has filed a patent for their invention. The technology is versatile — it could be used in the kitchen to fight stovetop flames or by fire departments in high-risk blazes as an alternative to human firefighters.
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