Sound waves - compression waves carry sound through a medium Frequency - how fast the wave is moving per second Crest - the highest point on a wave Period - is inversely proportional to frequency Trough - the lowest point on a wave Amplitude - the height of a wave Transverse Wave - a sine wave which means it doesn't require a medium so it can travel through space (ex. light) Longitudinal Wave - a compression wave that moves by compressing a medium like air (ex. sound) Constructive Interference - when two waves intercept and the wave doubles, then goes back to its normal "height" Destructive Interference - when two waves intersect and they cancel each other out; occurs when a crest meets the trough of another wave
I chose to make a string instrument which was modeled after a guitar. Going into this project I was hoping to model my guitar to a real acoustic guitar. As time went on I quickly realized that wasn't going to happen. Pressed for time, I decided to get creative and use a bottle from our school's cafeteria to amplify the strings sound. I had to make sure the strings (fishing line) were cut and tied at different precise lengths to give each string its own unique sound. I learned that the tighter you tie the string, the higher pitch the string would make, and if you loosened it the right amount, it would make a low, deep sounding pitch. In all I had three high pitch strings and one low pitched string. This gave the guitar a large range of sound between the highest and lowest strings.
Reflection
This was a fun project for a number of reasons. Our group was made up of friends who worked well together, allowing us to be more creative and relaxed about throwing out ideas. We had a good time making up a song for our instruments entitled "Inchin'" about an inchworm. We came up with it quickly and we all contributed, so it felt like a very well balanced project.
On the downside, we felt like we would have liked to have had more time. We had rush through the science behind everything in order to finish building our instruments in time. Also, one of our group members got the flu and was out for a week. We all helped him finish his instrument instead of working on our own instruments, and lost some time there.
Overall, I felt like this was one of the better projects we did this year. I thought it was interesting to learn the different notes on the instruments, and how it sounded when we all tried to play them together. I also really liked working with friends because we cut through all the politeness that often slows groups down. If we didn't like an idea, we could freely speak our minds and not worry about hurting someone's feelings because of our comfort level. This allowed us to achieve a positive final result more quickly. We all got along and had fun with the project.