Teenage Engineering Makes ‘Turntable’ To Instill ‘Hope’ In Irregular Heartbeats

In the United States, nearly 1%—or an estimated 40,000—babies are born with congenital heart defects (CHD) each year, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reporting that one in four babies with CHD suffers from critical illness.

Oskar Hellqvist, who had both his sons born with CHD, wanted to bring attention to the condition, which can adversely affect an infant’s heart development and even contribute to premature death.

As such, he turned to audiovisual artist and woodworker Love Hultén for help, aiming to build a special machine on behalf of The Swedish Heartchild Foundation, with the aim of transforming the disease into “something new and beautiful.”

The final product? A special device dubbed the CHD-4, which at first glance looks similar to a turntable, but instead of having the sound recordings engraved in a spiral, the machine uses four concentric rings to read the notes.

What’s even more amazing is what these four rings contain—each revealing the heartbeat pattern captured by an electrocardiogram of one of four children who suffer from CHD.

According to the creators, the patterns can be played together or individually to create a combination of sounds that exemplify “each child’s irregular heartbeat,” which Hellqvist described as “amazing and heartbreaking.”

The CHD-4 Heartbeat Drum Machine is now on auction till February 28 to raise awareness of the cause. All proceeds will go towards the Swedish Heartchild Foundation, a non-profit that supports children born with CHD.

Those interested in trying out the device can do so on a digital version created by audio company Plan8, which is available for anyone to play on their desktop and smartphone.

[via Fast Company and Stockholms Auktionsverk, images via Love Hultén / Teenage Engineering]