College dorm rooms are designed more for studying than socializing, but that didn’t stop Zack Anderson and RJ Ryan from creating a party spot in their cramped students’ quarters at MIT during their freshman year. The two enterprising electrical engineering and computer science majors designed a Multifunction In-Dorm Automation System, a.k.a. MIDAS, which uses voice activation to control web access, a music server, information displays, a security system, electric blinds, and more to showcase their tech talents as well as make their dorm a cool place to hang.
But it was the MIDAS “Party Button” that transformed the room from a geek retreat to a chic party place. (Watch a video of the "Party Button" in action.) Pushing the button turned off the lights, lowered the blinds, cranked up techno music over a 5.1 speaker system and activated an array of lights, including a sound-activated strobe and several lasers as well as a revolving disco ball, while a fog machine filled the roughly 9 x 12 space with a smoky ambiance. An LCD projector, computer monitor displaying Winamp visualization and an oscilloscope showing the waveform of the music create high-tech eye candy, while surveillance cameras recorded the whole scene.
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When their freshman year ended, Anderson and Ryan disassembled the whole setup. But Anderson, now a junior, has adapted MIDAS to his subsequent dorm rooms and added upgrades. “At MIT, each dorm gets money during the year to throw parties,” Anderson says. “When our hall would have a party, we would leave our dorm room door open and turn our system on so people could come in and dance.”
You don’t have to be a budding member of the tech sector or even a technophile, however, to create a dorm room that’s the social hot spot on your floor or building. With a few well-planned and relatively low-priced purchases, you can create a room that rocks by combining elements of music, video and lighting—plus have a great space to study, sleep, or just chill.
Party Tunes
You can’t have a party—or even much of a life—without music. Since you probably have the bulk of your tunes stashed on your hard drive, a set of computer speakers that can fill a room with sound will get a party going. Logitech’s Z-2300 system ($149.95), which received a coveted CNET Editor’s Choice award, features two 2.5-inch polished-aluminum speakers for strong mids and highs and an 8-inch subwoofer in a ported enclosure for deep bass.
Another option is to simply slip your MP3 player into a docking station and let the music flow.
Klipsch’s iGroove SXT ($179.99), which is designed for an iPod but works with other MP3 players through an aux-in jack, uses dual 2.5-inch speakers and 3/4-inch tweeters to crank out impressive sound, and it comes with a remote so you can control the tunes from across the room.
Altec Lansing’s M602 ($149.95) is another iPod-centric dock, while the company’s
M604 is designed for the Zune ($149.95), but both can accommodate other MP3 players. Each system boasts a pair of 3-inch full-range speakers and two silk-dome tweeters that pump out an impressive 100 dB of sound pressure level.
You’ll also want to create custom playlists for your party so that a snoozer doesn’t come up on shuffle mode. MP3 players like the Zune and iPod allow you to do that via their companion software, or you can just stream music from an Internet radio services such as
Pandora. But with an iTunes plug-in called
Bossa ($24), you can not only generate playlists, but also schedule them to automatically play within a certain time frame so that you can appropriately pace the music for your party.
