Our teacher gave us a challenge. It was a challenge that required curiosity, persistence and patience. You may remember my previous reflection of my Genius hour. Well, this is the first volume of the second book of the trilogy.

In this second project, I am researching on how headphones work, and what makes some better than others. I decided to research on the following headphones: Sony, Beats, JBL, Bose and Skullcandy. 

Here are links to the official websites: JBL, Sony, Beats, Skullcandy, Bose.

These are the people that I chose in order to get some information on my subject: @ergonomicsguy, @seanolive, @ProfTomCrick, @LJCreate, @DarenPickering, @moixland, @gcarboni, @nashworld, @tjshay and @LJRICH. I confidently chose those people because they all specialize in three things: computer information, audio and design/ergonomics. All these things are present in the making of a headphone, which is what I am researching about.

To be honest, I requested some very specific information from them. I asked questions like: What makes headphones comfortable to wear? Is it the material used, the amount of material used, the headphone structure or something else? Or: How are vocals reproduced in headphones? All these questions are very important for my project, as I am finding out what makes some headphones better than others. I narrowed my options down to comfort, design and sound quality, therefore these questions relate to my project in an unprecedented manner.

After research, I eventually found out what affects sound quality the most and the different things that affect comfort in a headphone. Unfortunately, not everyone responded to my questions. However, the ones who did provided useful information for my project. They answered the questions that were the building blocks of my project (like the foundation; without it, nothing can be built on top).

Only one of the people I contacted followed me back. Here is his Twitter handle: @DarenPickering. Three of the professionals offered more assistance. It was @ergonomicsguy, @DarenPickering and @tjshay. I also continued the conversation with all three of them; through Twitter DM, email and by @ on Twitter. They would always answer my questions on time.

There are various ways I would use this process in school. For example, in IB, I may contact some professionals in the subject that I will be taking, asking for assistance throughout the year. I may also use this method to know how to contact or address professionals in the future whether that be applying for a job or for another reason.

Overall, this was a very interesting and insightful project that I would like to try again in the future. My question to you readers is have you ever done something like this before? Thanks for reading.