Back in the Saddle

We jumped right back into the thick of things today, moving through sound with our eye on Friday's exam.

B and C Blocks discussed the concept of forced vibrations and resonance. Vibrations can be passed from one object to another (forced vibration) but if the vibration matches a natural frequency of the second object, there is a amplification effect (resonance). We looked at benefits of resonance (hearing, music) and downsides (engineering disasters)and watched some video clips of resonance in action. Tomorrow, we hit harmonics and beats.

E Block worked on their Tones, Vowels and Telephones lab, looking at sound profiles from tuning forks, voices, a tone dialer and even a cowbell and triangle produce on the computer. The lab provided a nice review of the ideas of frequency and harmonics and that will be helpful with the upcoming exam. Tomorrow, we'll do another lab that focuses on the speed of sound in air, so it is a bonus week for lab work.

F Block discussed the ideas of harmonics that the lab we conducted before winter break illustrated nicely. Harmonics, the integral multiples of the fundamental frequency were easily visible in your FFT graphs in lab, which we replicated today, and we double-checked our work to verify that the overtones measured in lab were actually harmonics. We related harmonics to standing waves and contrasted the harmonic series of different type of musical instruments. Tomorrow, we work on a lab that allows folks to measure the speed of sound in air and Wednesday is reserved for the topic of beats.