Musical Band
Just because we are using the left side of our brains in STEM, doesn't mean we can be creative and use our right sides, too. That's right, this time the STEM kids went artsy, making improvised instruments our of whatever we could scavenge from our prospective houses. We had to create three instruments, a stringed one, a woodwind, and a percussion instrument; each able to play at least one octave. There weren't many who invented new instruments, a lot of ours turned out to be variations on guitars, flutes, and drums/chimes. My group ended up making a piccolo, a bass guitar, and bongos. You can see a full description of our instruments in the document below.
Concepts:
Wave - energy moving through a medium
Wavelength - distance from crest to crest of a wave
Wave Speed- Wave length x Frequency
Frequency - how often a wave goes through one cycle
Period - amount of time between waves
Compression - pushes together
Rarefaction - pulling apart
I was really happy with how I performed in this project, I learned how a woodwind instrument actually works, and that science can make a certain task a LOT less tedious; however, I could have been more active in keeping other people on task, and making sure I can follow the design before jumping straight in. Before, I didn't exactly know how a recorder made a wave or vibration, but in my research, I learned that it actually splits the air stream into the flute, which then act on air already in the flute causing it to vibrate. While I certainly believed that science can make people's lives easier, it was proven to me again. In the beginning, my group was outside with our instruments, meticulously hand-tuning them, having to be absolutely quiet, and praying that "this time, it will work." Then, we learned that you could just MEASURE the wavelengths, and be confident that they were right. All of that tediousness, gone. It was a lifesaver. We certainly saved time, time wee very much needed. Usually, I am very good with managing my time, but this time, I had to concern myself with OTHER people being off task. I had one group mate who was screwing around for half the time, and I ended up having to do the bongos myself, when I should have ben getting on this person's case, getting them to work. Another thing that would have saved us time was planning. Originally, we were loosely following a guide on Instructables.com for our flute, but in the end, we couldn't do it, and went with a much more elegant design. If I had instead read the guide thoroughly and questioned the "do-ability" of it, we would have saved a lot of resources.
Concepts:
Wave - energy moving through a medium
Wavelength - distance from crest to crest of a wave
Wave Speed- Wave length x Frequency
Frequency - how often a wave goes through one cycle
Period - amount of time between waves
Compression - pushes together
Rarefaction - pulling apart
I was really happy with how I performed in this project, I learned how a woodwind instrument actually works, and that science can make a certain task a LOT less tedious; however, I could have been more active in keeping other people on task, and making sure I can follow the design before jumping straight in. Before, I didn't exactly know how a recorder made a wave or vibration, but in my research, I learned that it actually splits the air stream into the flute, which then act on air already in the flute causing it to vibrate. While I certainly believed that science can make people's lives easier, it was proven to me again. In the beginning, my group was outside with our instruments, meticulously hand-tuning them, having to be absolutely quiet, and praying that "this time, it will work." Then, we learned that you could just MEASURE the wavelengths, and be confident that they were right. All of that tediousness, gone. It was a lifesaver. We certainly saved time, time wee very much needed. Usually, I am very good with managing my time, but this time, I had to concern myself with OTHER people being off task. I had one group mate who was screwing around for half the time, and I ended up having to do the bongos myself, when I should have ben getting on this person's case, getting them to work. Another thing that would have saved us time was planning. Originally, we were loosely following a guide on Instructables.com for our flute, but in the end, we couldn't do it, and went with a much more elegant design. If I had instead read the guide thoroughly and questioned the "do-ability" of it, we would have saved a lot of resources.