Build a Musical Band
My favorite project this year was the "Build a Musical Band" project. My group spent many weeks creating three instruments from three different categories: wind, string and percussion.
Pitched Bottles: Our percussive instrument, pitched bottles, each produce a unique note when hit by our spoons. When a bottle is hit, it vibrates. These vibrations produce what our ear perceives as pitches. Due to the different levels of water inside of each bottle, each bottle produces its own note. This is because the bigger something is, the lower the pitch will be when it vibrates. When a bottle has a large amount of water in it there is more volume of the bottle to vibrate which produces a lower frequency. Simply, the more water in the bottle, the lower the pitch and vice-versa. Using 16 oz. bottles, we happened to luck out with our bottles resonating at a C at exactly 8 oz. full (when level). Using the ratio chart below, we added and subtracted water accordingly.
Slide-Whistle: Our wind instrument is our PVC slide-whistle. When the player ‘buzzes’ their lips, it vibrates the air which produces sound with a given pitch. To manipulate the pitch, the player moves the slide up and down the pipe to change the amount of air is vibrated. The larger the amount of air vibrated, the lower the sound and vice versa. In other words, by moving the slide down, a lower-pitched tone is produced and by moving the slide up, a higher-pitched tone. To find our C major scale, we found what note the slide produced in its different positions and marked them accordingly.
SNES Electric Guitar: Our stringed instrument, the SNES guitar, produces sound when its strings are plucked. In order to change the pitch of the sounds (assuming we stay in the same tuning the entire time), a finger is pressed behind the fret, shortening the string to different lengths. To calculate the positions of our frets accurately, we first had to measure the length of the string from the nut of the guitar to the bridge which was 610 mm (approximately 2 feet). By dividing the scale length by 17.817, you can get the distance between the nut and the first fret. In order to place the second fret you subtract the distance between the nut and the first fret from your string length and then divide your new distance/scale length by 17.817 and place your fret accordingly. You keep repeating the process until you have measured out all your frets (in this case, 24 frets). In addition to fretting notes, the string can also be moved from side-to-side increasing the tension of the string therefore increasing the pitch and frequency of the note produced. With lots of help from Weinstock Guitars (https://www.facebook.com/WeinstockGuitars), We attached our headstock to our neck, added frets, and reinforced the poorly structured SNES body. Top View of Pickup Sawyer wanted to not only make a functioning guitar, but a functioning electric guitar. In order to do this, he created a magnetic pickup by wrapping copper wire about 8,000 times around magnetic bobbins (screws magnetized by neodymium magnets). After many unsuccessful attempts due to wire breakage (extremely thin wire and meticulous winding don't mix well!), he finally managed to create this crude pickup. When a string is plucked, the vibration disturbs the coil's magnetic field which sends electronic energy to the guitar's wiring where it is shaped and then sent to the amplifier for amplification to be heard.
After the extreme patience test, Sawyer and I soldered the pickup to a volume control [potentiometer) and to a 1/4 inch mono jack. Before mounting inside the guitar, we tested the circuit by plugging in the pickup and holding it over one of my guitars. When sound came out Sawyer and I were practically screaming in joy! Though the output was very quiet (not enough winds on the coil) we had managed to electrify our guitar. Then we proceeded to mount the pickup into the SNES body. Then we screwed the body together and began to string up the guitar and tune it. Drilling a Hole for the Volume Control. While tuning, our bridge (the cartridge holder) snapped. Our pristine guitar was in the dumps. So in a rush, Sawyer and I made a secondary wooden bridge and strung that through. This managed to work, although the intense tension from the 6 strings would bend the neck when the guitar was in tune. When Sawyer tried to tune it to standard guitar tuning, the 20 year old plastic snapped. I was devastated. In order to try to reduce the compression, Sawyer added two pencils. This fixed the problem and the guitar finally came to life!
Physics Concepts
Wave Speed = Wave length x Frequency
Period = 1 / Frequency
Sound waves - Waves created by the vibration of objects to produce a frequency.
Compression - Pushing something together.
Rarefaction - Pulling something apart .
Medium - A substance that waves travel through.
Amplitude - The distance from the midpoint to the top or bottom of wave.
Crest - The top of a wave or bottom of wave where the width is largest.
Wavelength - The distance from crest to crest, in meters.
Frequency - How often a vibration occurs in Hertz, or cycles per second.
Period - The amount of time between waves.
Wave - A disturbance or vibration through a medium.
Transverse waves - Vertical movement.
Longitudinal waves - Horizontal compression.
Interference - Two waves being added together.
Positive interference - Two waves added that create a bigger wave.
Non-Constructive interference - Two waves added that create a smaller wave.
Node - The area between a wave.
Anti-Node - The highest and lowest points of a wave.
Pitch - How we perceive wavelength through our ears.
Doppler Effect - The concept of a change in frequency due to the motion of a source.
Blue shift - An increase in frequency.
Red shift - A decrease in frequency.
Resonance - The natural wavelength/frequency of an object.
Pitched Bottles: Our percussive instrument, pitched bottles, each produce a unique note when hit by our spoons. When a bottle is hit, it vibrates. These vibrations produce what our ear perceives as pitches. Due to the different levels of water inside of each bottle, each bottle produces its own note. This is because the bigger something is, the lower the pitch will be when it vibrates. When a bottle has a large amount of water in it there is more volume of the bottle to vibrate which produces a lower frequency. Simply, the more water in the bottle, the lower the pitch and vice-versa. Using 16 oz. bottles, we happened to luck out with our bottles resonating at a C at exactly 8 oz. full (when level). Using the ratio chart below, we added and subtracted water accordingly.
Slide-Whistle: Our wind instrument is our PVC slide-whistle. When the player ‘buzzes’ their lips, it vibrates the air which produces sound with a given pitch. To manipulate the pitch, the player moves the slide up and down the pipe to change the amount of air is vibrated. The larger the amount of air vibrated, the lower the sound and vice versa. In other words, by moving the slide down, a lower-pitched tone is produced and by moving the slide up, a higher-pitched tone. To find our C major scale, we found what note the slide produced in its different positions and marked them accordingly.
SNES Electric Guitar: Our stringed instrument, the SNES guitar, produces sound when its strings are plucked. In order to change the pitch of the sounds (assuming we stay in the same tuning the entire time), a finger is pressed behind the fret, shortening the string to different lengths. To calculate the positions of our frets accurately, we first had to measure the length of the string from the nut of the guitar to the bridge which was 610 mm (approximately 2 feet). By dividing the scale length by 17.817, you can get the distance between the nut and the first fret. In order to place the second fret you subtract the distance between the nut and the first fret from your string length and then divide your new distance/scale length by 17.817 and place your fret accordingly. You keep repeating the process until you have measured out all your frets (in this case, 24 frets). In addition to fretting notes, the string can also be moved from side-to-side increasing the tension of the string therefore increasing the pitch and frequency of the note produced. With lots of help from Weinstock Guitars (https://www.facebook.com/WeinstockGuitars), We attached our headstock to our neck, added frets, and reinforced the poorly structured SNES body. Top View of Pickup Sawyer wanted to not only make a functioning guitar, but a functioning electric guitar. In order to do this, he created a magnetic pickup by wrapping copper wire about 8,000 times around magnetic bobbins (screws magnetized by neodymium magnets). After many unsuccessful attempts due to wire breakage (extremely thin wire and meticulous winding don't mix well!), he finally managed to create this crude pickup. When a string is plucked, the vibration disturbs the coil's magnetic field which sends electronic energy to the guitar's wiring where it is shaped and then sent to the amplifier for amplification to be heard.
After the extreme patience test, Sawyer and I soldered the pickup to a volume control [potentiometer) and to a 1/4 inch mono jack. Before mounting inside the guitar, we tested the circuit by plugging in the pickup and holding it over one of my guitars. When sound came out Sawyer and I were practically screaming in joy! Though the output was very quiet (not enough winds on the coil) we had managed to electrify our guitar. Then we proceeded to mount the pickup into the SNES body. Then we screwed the body together and began to string up the guitar and tune it. Drilling a Hole for the Volume Control. While tuning, our bridge (the cartridge holder) snapped. Our pristine guitar was in the dumps. So in a rush, Sawyer and I made a secondary wooden bridge and strung that through. This managed to work, although the intense tension from the 6 strings would bend the neck when the guitar was in tune. When Sawyer tried to tune it to standard guitar tuning, the 20 year old plastic snapped. I was devastated. In order to try to reduce the compression, Sawyer added two pencils. This fixed the problem and the guitar finally came to life!
Physics Concepts
Wave Speed = Wave length x Frequency
Period = 1 / Frequency
Sound waves - Waves created by the vibration of objects to produce a frequency.
Compression - Pushing something together.
Rarefaction - Pulling something apart .
Medium - A substance that waves travel through.
Amplitude - The distance from the midpoint to the top or bottom of wave.
Crest - The top of a wave or bottom of wave where the width is largest.
Wavelength - The distance from crest to crest, in meters.
Frequency - How often a vibration occurs in Hertz, or cycles per second.
Period - The amount of time between waves.
Wave - A disturbance or vibration through a medium.
Transverse waves - Vertical movement.
Longitudinal waves - Horizontal compression.
Interference - Two waves being added together.
Positive interference - Two waves added that create a bigger wave.
Non-Constructive interference - Two waves added that create a smaller wave.
Node - The area between a wave.
Anti-Node - The highest and lowest points of a wave.
Pitch - How we perceive wavelength through our ears.
Doppler Effect - The concept of a change in frequency due to the motion of a source.
Blue shift - An increase in frequency.
Red shift - A decrease in frequency.
Resonance - The natural wavelength/frequency of an object.
Reflection:
This project was my favorite STEM project this year by far. I had an amazing group and we made some amazing instruments. We managed to make a somewhat fully functioning guitar. Making this instrument brought two things into the four weeks of its creation: joy from self-accomplishment and great amounts of anger and frustration.
Three things that were great about this project were time management, the quality of our work and the effort. Our group work was done quickly and effectively. The qualiy of this work was much better than we expected. We spent a lot of time perfecting the details once the major ones were done. The effort put into this project was the most effort I have ever put out into a project. This project seemed to "speak" to me much more than any others did.
Three things that could have changed during our instrument production time span were the amount of time we had to work on the project, amount of error and feasibility. If we had an extra week to work on our instruments they could have been much better quality. The amount of error in this project drove me crazy. A lot of thing we didn't account for (like string tension) caught up with us in the end. Also, we tried to be "too creative". It is possible for us to build a decent SNES guitar but not in this short amount of time.
This project was very fun as an end-of-year assignment and it left me many memories and taught me a lot about musical instruments.
This project was my favorite STEM project this year by far. I had an amazing group and we made some amazing instruments. We managed to make a somewhat fully functioning guitar. Making this instrument brought two things into the four weeks of its creation: joy from self-accomplishment and great amounts of anger and frustration.
Three things that were great about this project were time management, the quality of our work and the effort. Our group work was done quickly and effectively. The qualiy of this work was much better than we expected. We spent a lot of time perfecting the details once the major ones were done. The effort put into this project was the most effort I have ever put out into a project. This project seemed to "speak" to me much more than any others did.
Three things that could have changed during our instrument production time span were the amount of time we had to work on the project, amount of error and feasibility. If we had an extra week to work on our instruments they could have been much better quality. The amount of error in this project drove me crazy. A lot of thing we didn't account for (like string tension) caught up with us in the end. Also, we tried to be "too creative". It is possible for us to build a decent SNES guitar but not in this short amount of time.
This project was very fun as an end-of-year assignment and it left me many memories and taught me a lot about musical instruments.