Designing Mobile Interfaces

Chapter 12. Audio and Vibration

The Big Tooter

High atop Mount Oread, in the picturesque city of Lawrence, Kansas, stands a whistle—a whistle with quite a history composed of tradition, controversy, and headache that started about a hundred years ago. The whistle is known as the “Big Tooter.”

March 25, 1912, 9:50 a.m.: a deafening shrill begins. For five earsplitting seconds the power plant steam whistle at the University of Kansas sounds. The sound is so loud it can be heard from one side of the city to the other. It’s the first time the whistle is used to signal the end of each hour of class time.

According to the student newspaper The Daily Kansan, the whistle was not only used to replace the untimely and inconsistent ringing of bells with a standard schedule of marked time, but was also used to remind professors to end their lectures immediately. Prior to the whistle, too often professors would keep students past the 55 minutes of class time, causing them to be late for their next class. With the new sound system in place, even the chancellor had something to say.

“If the instructor isn’t through when the whistle blows,” said KU Chancellor Frank Strong to the student body, “get up and go.”

The Big Tooter Today

For the past 100 years, the Big Tooter has been the deafening reminder to faculty and students about punctuality and when to cover their ears. I can say I, too, was one of those students who would purposely alter my walk to class to avoid that sound at its loudest range. But ...