music band
In this project, we learned about waves and how we interact with waves everyday. The are 2 types of waves; compression waves and transverse waves. We learned more about compression waves for this project. Compression waves are the waves that carry energy across the air and then picked up by our ears otherwise know as sound. We used this information to build our own musical band that consists of three instruments: wing, chimes, and string.
Bassuba:
Our wind
instrument is the Bassuba, a mixture of a bassoon and a tuba, it can play all seven notes we
need it to play. It can play these notes because we drilled holes at certain
lengths to make the notes. You can see the wavelengths and the notes in the
table below. We used the 3rd octave and we cut it to be quarters of the
wavelengths because the instrument can only make a quarter of the actual
wavelengths. So we got “what we cut it to” by dividing the wavelength by four,
to make our notes. The sound is made
when the air moves through the object and comes out at certain points, so to
play the C you cover all the holes to play D you cover all but the bottom hole
and so on. We figured how long to cut it from a wavelength table and we figured
out where to put the holes from an equation table which is under the wavelength
table.
Pipeophone:
This instrument is the chimes part
of our musical band, the pipeophone or otherwise known as the xylophone. The
pipeophone uses steel tubes with 2 ½ cm diameter and a wood board with holes in
the board to help resonate sound. This instrument plays all 8 notes of the
C5-C6 octave scale. The reason we hear sound is because of the sound waves
called compression waves. sound is energy traveling through the air particles
to our ears where our receptors pick up the energy as sound. Wavelength is the
length from crest to crest or trough to trough. We calculate the lengths of the
pipe by taking the the wavelength of the note and dividing by 4. This gives us
the correct pipe size to create that certain note. Unfortunately, we have
failed to calculate the pipe’s natural
frequency so the notes we anticipated to hear didn’t quite make us satisfied
but we have created a major harmonic scale instead of a C scale.
Mechanical Musical Monstrosity: What
do you get when you mix a two-string ukulele, elements of a violin, model car
parts and 9 volts of electricity? The end result is the Mechanical Musical
Monstrosity, one of 3 instruments devised by our group for the Build a Band
project. The MMM operates on the 'circular bow' principle, the same found in
the eastern European Hurdy Gurdy. The design includes a wooden flywheel coated
in rosin that spins against the two strings, rather like the bow of a violin.
The flywheel is turned by a 9v electric motor controlled by 3 switches. Switch
1 is power, sending 9v to switches 2 and 3. Switch 2 comes after several
resistors, bring the voltage down to around 6.5v. Switch 3 is a booster that
sends about 8v to the motor. The strings are tuned to the pitches G3 and D3,
although this can be varied by the screw-controlled tuners located beneath the
resonance box or placing your fingers on the fingerboard. When the flywheel
strikes the strings, the strings vibrate, sending pressure waves to our ears,
our brain interpreting them as the lovely music you hear. The strings also
resonate against the piezoelectric pickup mounted to the side of the
instrument. The pickup converts the vibrations to electrical pulses sent to an
amplifier
Concepts:
Wave - a disturbance that travels through matter or space that transfers energy.
Wave Speed - Wave Length x Frequency
Frequency - number cycles, vibrations, oscillations, or repeated event per time; measured in Hertz
Sound Waves - a longitudinal pressure wave of audible or inaudible sound
Transverse Waves - wave with vibration at right angles to the direction the wave is traveling
Medium - matter waves travel through.
Longitudinal Waves - wave in which vibration is in same direction as which the wave is traveling
Wave - a disturbance that travels through matter or space that transfers energy.
Wave Speed - Wave Length x Frequency
Frequency - number cycles, vibrations, oscillations, or repeated event per time; measured in Hertz
Sound Waves - a longitudinal pressure wave of audible or inaudible sound
Transverse Waves - wave with vibration at right angles to the direction the wave is traveling
Medium - matter waves travel through.
Longitudinal Waves - wave in which vibration is in same direction as which the wave is traveling
Reflection:
We are surrounded by waves everyday all the time. Most of the waves you don't see such as UV waves and light waves. This project was really fun to make instruments that actually work, I am very proud of the group I had. Poh Maga likes to create and make everything electronic (he is the creator of the Mechanical Musical Monstrosity), and Logan Sheehan is a joy to have around. All of us used all of our brains and knowledge to create and design such well-rounded musical instruments to present. We are proud of the work we have accomplished, hope to see you next time with a stunningly amazing project!
Thank You!
We are surrounded by waves everyday all the time. Most of the waves you don't see such as UV waves and light waves. This project was really fun to make instruments that actually work, I am very proud of the group I had. Poh Maga likes to create and make everything electronic (he is the creator of the Mechanical Musical Monstrosity), and Logan Sheehan is a joy to have around. All of us used all of our brains and knowledge to create and design such well-rounded musical instruments to present. We are proud of the work we have accomplished, hope to see you next time with a stunningly amazing project!
Thank You!