My Makeshift Flute
By Gabriella Vasquez, Jada Nazarian, and Sophia Moreno
This assignment was to build an instrument that played a full octave based off the measurements of sound waves. All sound waves are created by a vibration, and in a flute, the sound is created by splitting the air over the mouthpiece. During this project, we created groups based off of our favorite music genre and then had to create a string instrument, a wind instrument, and a chime instrument. I decided to make a flute because it is an instrument that I play and had basic knowledge on.
Before we could start building, we had to create a blueprint of our design with all of the measurements. We were given a table that had the full scale of notes, their wavelengths, and their frequencies. I then had to take 1/4 of every wavelength and convert it into cm to find out where each hole would be placed for it to be able to create the note I wanted. These measurements are taken from the whole in the mouthpiece. After creating the blueprint, I then drilled holes into a PVC pipe that I painted later on and finally attached a flute mouthpiece so that the air would be split correctly. I made my flute so that it would play C4 to C5, so the middle octave. After my instrument was done, my group had to make a document describing all the physics to each instrument and a table describing it all. This document can be found at right. Content
Amplitude: the maximum extent of a vibration or oscillation, measured from the position of equilibrium. Wave length: the distance between successive crests of a wave Frequency: the number of crests of a wave that move past a given point in a given unit of time Velocity: rate of distance covered in a direction Period: the time required for one complete cycle of vibration to pass a given point Hertz: the SI unit of frequency, equal to one cycle per second. Constructive Interference: When two waves line up in a way that doubles the frequency Destructive Interference: When two opposite waves line up in a way that cancels each other out Transverse Wave: a wave vibrating at right angles to the direction of its propagation Longitudinal Wave: a wave vibrating in the direction of propagation Crest: The highest point in the wave Trough: The lowest point in a wave Compression: a region in a longitudinal wave where the particles are closest together Rarefaction: a region in a longitudinal wave where the particles are furthest apart Below are links to my teammates pages:
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Reflection
This project was really fun for me because I love music, and learning about how the sounds were made was very interesting. One thing that went really well in the project was my time management. I worked efficiently and got everything done with a lot of time to spare. Another thing that I believe I did well on was my leadership. After I finished my project, I made sure to help out my teammates in any way I could and make sure they were doing what they were supposed to do. One thing I could have done better was my empathy levels. I tended to get frustrated when my teammates were not working as diligently as I would have liked. Another thing I need to keep in mind for future projects is putting in high amounts of effort for harder projects. I worked quickly and did not expand my mind to other ideas, which is something I need to work on. But overall, this project was fun and easy and I enjoyed learning about how my favorite instruments worked. |