We created the Grip Guitar, a lightweight and ergonomic electric guitar for easy transportation.
Grip Guitar was my second group project for my introductory engineering class, ENGN0032. In our group of three, I was in charge of figuring out the electronic components of the guitar. This was also my first electronics project. Through lots of debugging and inhaling an ungodly amount of solder, we got the guitar working and I’m very proud of our work! We received a great grade on the project so I think Professor Donohue liked it too.
Emelie Nguyen, Moselle Mac, Constance Wang
Laser cutter, drill press, band saw, laser cutter, soldering iron, many screwdrivers and drills.
The body shape of electric guitars have changed relatively little from their original forms introduced in the 1950s by brands like Fender and Gibson. Models like the Stratocaster or Les Paul, introduced over half a century ago, continue to dominate the market. Despite advances in materials, manufacturing, and the rise of digital music, electric guitar bodies have barely departed from the contoured shape—with a slim waist and rounded bouts—of these legacy models. The few existing variations, like offset body shapes or "extreme" forms in metal music (like this angel guitar), are largely one-offs that prioritize aesthetics over ergonomic innovation.
For our user persona, we came up with Victor: a person with muscular weakness that wants to begin learning the guitar. Taking into consideration the needs of someone with these constraints (want something that’s lightweight, easy to hold/carry, accessible to beginners), we came up with some sketch ideas. The neck was given to us so we couldn’t change that piece. For the body, we were given a 16x11” cutting board to sculpt into our final body.
As an electric guitar player myself, I’ve always wondered why guitar-makers have stuck to the traditional solid wooden body and not experimented with holes to cut down the weight. Furthermore, when I carry my guitar, I usually carry it by the neck. But the uneven weight makes it uncomfortable to do for long periods of time. Even with a strap, my neck sometimes starts to hurt. I decided to experiment with different grips in my sketch as well.
After our sketch generation, we down-selected each of our favorite sketches using the scoring framework Constance made. We then created cardboard lo-fi prototypes of each of our top sketches.
We ultimately decided on a prototype with ~7 body cutouts (Moselle’s sketch) because we realized that most of the wood was just free space and the only cavity we needed was a ~2x5” one for the electric components. Unlike an acoustic guitar, the shape of the body of an electric doesn’t matter because the sound is primarily generated by the pickups converting string vibrations into an electrical signal, rather than relying on the body to amplify the sound acoustically (more on this below).
Call me a fake guitar player, but I hear no difference between the tone knob turned all the way down on my Strat and all the way up. To reduce the mental load on our beginner persona, I opted for a one pickup, no tone wiring diagram using Seymour Duncan as a reference along with many YouTube tutorials (shoutout to AxMax and Bro Guitars).
For the curious, I’m going to give a brief overview of how the electronics work in an electric guitar. Shown below is the guitar pickup: 6 screws wrapped by a thin, 42 gauge copper wire ~500 times. On the bottom side with the tape, magnets will be attached as shown in the next photo to create a magnetic field. This is called a solenoid which is essentially a coil of wire wound around a magnet. When the strings of a guitar vibrate, they disturb the magnetic field created by the magnets in the pickup. This fluctuations of the vibrating strings induce a small alternating current in the solenoid (coil) due to electromagnetic induction. This signal is sent to the guitar amplifier, which converts it back into audible sound by driving a speaker.
Before sending the signal to the amp though, the signal first passes through the potentiometer (the volume knob). A potentiometer is a variable resistor, and in a guitar that means it adjusts the amount of signal that passes through to the output jack (where the cable and guitar meet) and ultimately the amp. When you turn the knob, it adjusts the resistance in the circuit. When you turn the volume up, you’re allowing more signal to pass which means you’re decreasing the resistance.
I was SOOO happy with our final product. It’s easy to grip by any of the cutouts, all the electronics work, and it weighs just 4 pounds compared to the 6-12 pound average of other electric guitars. Constance and Moselle spent a lot of time making the body look as professional as it does. I'm very thankful to have had them as teammates.
After assembling the electronics on my first try, the guitar didn’t make any noise and I was beyond frustrated. I didn’t know what the issue was, so after hours of fruitless toiling, I decided to just start from scratch and this time be very weary of potential mistakes like low connectivity and snapped components. Here’s an overview of potential mistakes I could’ve made from our final report. I’m kinda happy that these mistakes did happen though because it felt like I was solving an interactive puzzle.
