The Sound of Music
In this project our class learnt all about waves (specifically sound waves). We learnt how to measure them, what part of the wave affects the sound that you hear, and how they can be manipulated to be used for music and other purposes. We learnt from experts in the field about harmonics and different types of sound waves. For our final product we got into groups and built sound installation. In the group I was in we built mono chords and drums and set up dippy birds (also known as drinking birds) to that they could play them. The dippy birds were set up on servos so that one dippy bird could play two mono chords. My main job in the group was making sure the servo stands worked, which provided countless interesting, if frustrating, engineering and software challenges. The final product was dissembled, but below you can see the separate images of both the dippy bird wiring and servo setup, and the duel sided mono chord that place the strings in a position where they could be strummed by the back swing of the dippy bird.