This was the best project we have done all year. The objective of the musical instruments project was to build a band basically. We built a chimes instrument, wind instrument, and a string instrument. My whole group is part of the music program in jazz band so it was fun to build our own instruments and make notes for them. Making notes was the hardest part. I built the chimes instrument where the pitch was a huge part of it. When you hit a chime, it makes the pipe vibrate which makes a sound wave. The pitch has a few factors that come into making the note you want. One is the material. We used metal because it rings louder and more clear. The larger the pipe, the lower the note. All the pipes were the same width so the only variable was the length. The design was simple but very effective and enjoyable to build.
The next instrument we did was our strings instrument. This was a one string guitar that played F major scale. The other instrument was a trombone (wind instrument). This was the most elaborate and well thought out instrument of the whole class in my opinion. It was very cool to hear the trombone and be a part of building it.
Physics Concepts
Wavelength - distance of one full wave.
Period - time between waves/ vibrations.
Wave speed - rate at which a wave travels
Transverse wave - movement perpendicular to wave direction and does not require a medium.
Longitudinal wave - movement parallel to wave direction and require a medium.
Amplitude - Displacement from equilibrium to crest and measured in meters.
Crest - The highest point of a wave.
Trough - the lowest part of the wave.
Frequency - how many waves are created/ passed in a certain amount of time and measure in Hertz.
Period - time between waves/ vibrations.
Wave speed - rate at which a wave travels
Transverse wave - movement perpendicular to wave direction and does not require a medium.
Longitudinal wave - movement parallel to wave direction and require a medium.
Amplitude - Displacement from equilibrium to crest and measured in meters.
Crest - The highest point of a wave.
Trough - the lowest part of the wave.
Frequency - how many waves are created/ passed in a certain amount of time and measure in Hertz.
Reflection
Building three different musical instruments was one of the most enjoyable projects we have done all year. It was so enjoyable because we learned how to build some musical instruments and my group and I are all a part of the jazz band at school so it was really cool to do. Our communication worked very well because we were all acquainted with each other and got along well. Something that went poorly was our guitar. We used fishing wire that wasn't amplified enough so you couldn't hear it. Two things I learned are that I appreciate the building part of musical instruments and what you have to do to build them. I also learned that building things and engineering things is something I am really into and want to do in the future possibly. Some things I could have done better are planning the chimes more. I didn't plan everything we had to do so we worked basically on the fly. Although it worked out great, that was very stressful. Another thing that I will continue to work and expand on is my work ethic and productivity. Even though my team gave me good scores on the collaboration score sheet we did I did not feel as if I put 110% into this project like I should have. Some pits in our project was when two people in our group were gone for two days. Another person in my team and I had to put a lot of work in so we could make up what our team mates had missed. Everything else went very well. Some peaks in our project was our document describing all of the instruments. We worked very hard and I felt that we did very well on them. Another peak in the build a band project was our trombone. It was pretty difficult to build but we ended up being very successful with it. This project was amazing and awesome.