Northwoods Experience: BSU Students Build Megaphone for Amplifying Nature Sounds

A “capstone” project from graduating Bemidji State University engineering students is now on display on a local nature preserve.

Finished on May 7th, the giant nature megaphone was built in collaboration with the Mississippi Headwaters Audubon Society to amplify the sounds of animals and connect people with sounds of nature that they may not normally hear.

“We had inspiration from a similar megaphone that was built in Estonia, and then we altered the design a little bit to better capture the frequencies of the birds and the higher-frequency sounds that you can hear in nature that you’re not normally able to hear as easy,” explained BSU engineering technology graduate Jeff Corcoran, who was a part of the building team.

All people need to do is sit near the small end of the megaphone, and all of the nature sounds will come in and funnel directly towards them.

“We have no road access to where this is going, which is kind of the reason for it, to have it in a remote place,” said Mississippi Audubon Society Board President Peter Buesseler. “A time for reflection, maybe a little bit of stepping away from the typical daily thoughts and worries.”

“When you’re in everyday life, you don’t you don’t get to experience those sounds quite as much,” said BSU engineering technology graduate Hans Berg.

The project’s wood was donated by Northwoods Lumber. The structure was built at BSU and then taken apart and brought to the Neilson Spearhead Preserve, a 466-acre nature preserve located just south of Bemidji. Now rebuilt, the megaphone has been placed among the five miles of public trails.

“The mission of our organization is connecting people with nature,” said Buesseler. “And this just seems like an additional way that people, as they’re walking around, can stop and really pay attention to what’s going on around them.”

“My favorite aspect is probably laying inside of it,” said BSU prototype engineering graduate Tucker Hentges. “The decagon that we built it in, it’s kind of comfortable just to lay along the side of it and just kind of take it all in and just relax.”

And even though the builders can lie down now and rest in the structure, the journey to get there might not have been quite so relaxing.

“First we designed it and then fabricated it, and then we had to make presentations and reports about how it all went,” explained Berg.

“I mean, we were all there in the school [working] late hours, long days,” added Hentges.

“We put about 320 man hours into the actual fabrication of it,” said Corcoran. “So after all that time, it’s awesome to see it come together as a whole piece.”

“Well, seeing it is actually pretty good,” said BSU engineering technology graduate Elijah Brown. “You get to lay in it, stand in it. It was about five people in there taking a picture. So it actually is—it can hold people and [is] aesthetically pleasing as they want it.”

The 11-foot-long cone is officially finished and is set up on the Neilson Spearhead Preserve. It can be reached by hiking along the trails, or by kayaking or canoeing across Spearhead Lake.