Many don’t realize how innovative Disney is. They’ve been working with animatronics, special effects, and innovative technology for decades. The animatronic “It’s a small world” ride is celebrating it’s 50th year, this year.

So we shouldn’t be surprised that Disney is working with 3D printing. Gizmag reports that Disney is using 3D printers to make speakers into any shape. They aren’t just creating innovative new speaker housing, they’re actually turning the 3D printed pieces into speakers, speakers that can be customized anyway they want.

Disney can use the 3D printing technology to mold speakers into the shape of Disney characters and then make the sound come out of the entire creation or out of the parts of the creation they want. The speakers that they’ve already printed into ducks and even abstract spirals, run on batteries and can emit sound at up to 60db.

The possibilities with this technology for Disney are endless. They could craft their own 3D printed speakers for their next big movie set or their next big ride. Sound can be more controlled across hundreds of small 3D printed speaker, rather than an array of loud speakers.

Just imagine if they had this technology 50 years ago when they were building the “It’s a small world” ride. Each animatronic character could have it’s own speaker, from characters, to boats, to the sunshine. Each speaker is based on electrostatic speaker technology and have no moving parts.

“Each loudspeaker contains an electrode plate and a thin conductive diaphragm, separated by a layer of air. When a high voltage audio signal is applied to the electrode, the diaphragm deforms and reproduces the sound.” Gizmag reports.

With the technology that these researchers for Disney have created, the object itself becomes the diaphragm. The speakers can even be picked up without any voltage risk and without losing sound quality.

The possibilities don’t end at the Disney parks or in movies though.

The 3D printed speakers can also omit an ultrasound frequency. This means that they could interact with a microphone on a computer during a computer game, or even the mic on a console game system or wireless phone. This could be the future of games like Disney Infinity or Skylanders enabling a user to play a mobile version without having to have a special base connected to their device.

Disney’s researchers hope to make this technology so easy that 3D printed speakers can just be dropped into any design, any creation, any game.

Here’s an amazing video of the technology: