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At 04:52 PM 11/09/99 -0700, you wrote:
I teach conceptual physics at a high school. I am looking for lab
activities in waves and sound. Any ideas?

Fred,

Here is a list of stuff I've put together from all sorts of places. These are
very short bullets. If you would like more info, you can e-mail me off the
list and I will try to provide more details.


1. Make wave. Long piece of paper on deck. Move magic marker up and down at
steady rate, have a student pull paper away at steady rate. Will make a
transverse wave.

2. Make "stadium" type wave in class - students raise arms up in proper
sequence.

3. Make waves outside in hall. Transverse wave - students stand side by side
and hold hands -- they raise hands their hands in sequence, making a wave.
Second method. Student at one end takes one step forward, two steps back, two
steps forward, etc. The next student does so as well as he is sort of dragged
along. End up with a sine wave as students move forward and back. You can
walk along a crest to show speed of wave. Longitudinal wave -- students face
same direction with hands on person's shoulder in front. Push last student
into the next. This creates longitudinal wave.

4. Use a clear flower pot drain container (the kind you stick under large
flower pots). Fill with water and place on overhead projector. Add water to
depth of about 5 cm (around 2 inches). To excite the waves, grasp the sides of
the flexible container with both hands located about 10 cm apart. Rhythmically
push the tank sides. Adjust the phase and frequency of the two hand pushes.

5. Mousetrap game

6. Dominos in a row

7. Pendulum

8. Bobbing weight on spring

9. Hanging wave demos - toothpick, pop cycle stick, bamboo skewer. Sticks are
glued perpendicularly to two strings in center. You end up with a long
assembly of sticks. Hang from ceiling and add small weight to bottom of
strings. Flick the end of the sticks and you get waves that travel up and
down.

10. String vibrator - available from science equipment outfits.

11. Standing wave with electric drill. Clamp electric drill firmly to a
wooden support. Plug into extension cord that runs through a light dimmer.
This lets you control the speed of the drill. A three inch metal disk is
clamped into the bit. A hole is drilled near edge of disk. String is attacked
to disk with a fishing ball bearing swivel. String is around 25 feet long and
other end is attached to rigid support with swivel. String should be taught.
Turn on drill and vary speed. You will get impressive standing waves. Turn
out lights and illuminate with strobe light. You can "freeze" the string.
Very impressive.

12. Standing wave machine -- make from radio shack motors, string, and PVC
fittings. A San Francisco Exploratorium snack. See their web sight at
http://www.exploratorium.edu/

13. Spring/rope demos

14. Slinky - transverse and longitudinal.

15. Transparencies of wave additions, interference, etc.

16. Show refraction by marching down hall linking elbows.

17. Harmonica motion. Pendulum made up of harmonica. Idea is from the Dick
and Rae Physics Demo Notebook.

18. Toy tractor pulls long piece of black paper (about 1 m in width, 3 or 4
meters in length). Large coffee can has hole drilled in bottom. Fill can with
sand, hand above paper and set to swinging back and forth above. Sand forms
sine wave on paper.

19. 200 g mass on end of hacksaw blade. Clamp other end to table. Set to
vibrating.

20. Rotating slinky on overhead wave demonstrator.
Use around 5 - 7 turns of slinky spring. Mount between screw eyes. Rig up one
end so you can rotate the thing.

21. Siren disc. Blow onto the rows of holes and get different sounds.

22. Sound level meter. Measure various noises.

23. Clamp whip antenna into vice to show standing wave.

24. Thin wood strip to show standing wave as above.

25. Standing wave with heavy chain or plastic slinky - hold and let dangle,
then rotate with wrist.

26. Drive soap film with speaker. Soap film should be on some sort of
circular hoop deal. You will see waves

27. Show waves with soap film. Make 1ft x 2 ft wire frame, dip in soap bubble
stuff, move frame in a series of short arcs, back and forth. Soap film forms
wave shapes.

28. Rube Goldberg machine transparencies.

29. Make wave with hand.

30. Crepe paper strip in fan stream. Strip makes out wave shape.

31. Make standing wave with old aquarium air pump. Hook line up to the
vibrating arm in the thing.

32. Tuning fork - stick in water.

33. Tuning fork, hold in front of TV or computer monitor.

34. Tuning fork - hold against tooth or hold against ear, or ear ring.

35. Touch tuning fork to area just above lip near nose.

36. Tuning fork - hold against TV screen or desk top and it sounds much
louder.

37. Put rice in speaker, watch the stuff dance.

38. Rice on stretched plastic over bowl. Hit pan with spoon. Rice dances.

39. Bull roarer. Make from a 12 inch ruler. Drill hole near one end and
tie with string. Whirl around and around. Produces interesting sound.
Featured in move "Crocodile Dundee".

40. Rub inflated balloon to get weird sounds. Stretch balloon stem and
make
it squawk as air is released.

41. Go through the audible range of sound with wave generator hooked up to
amp and speaker.

42. Stethoscope.

43. Sound traveling through plastic hose. Mark center point of hose with
black line. Have student sit with back to class. Student holds tube openings
against ears. Tap on tube with pencil -- can student tell which side has
been hit?

44. Soup can telephone.

45. Talking cups. These say happy birthday, science is fun, and merry
Christmas. You can find in party favor stores.

46. Play record with plastic cup and straight pin.

47. Buzzer in PVC pipe. Get min's and max's around the room.

48. Show diffraction of sound by talking and walking out of the room and
back.

49. Show reflection of sound by making echo.

50. Echo phone -- you can find in toy stores.

51. Space phone slinky deal. Arbor sells these things.

52. Alien/ghost/alien megaphones. You can find these in toy stores

53. Megaphone.

54. Spy phones - parabolic dish and mike arrangement. I got mine in
a toy
store.

55. Speakers in and out of phase.

56. karyoke -- Radio shack has a machine that will remove the vocal track
from stereo recordings

57. Float tuning fork mounted on wooden block in aquarium. Press ear
against glass to hear the sound.

58. Speaker sits flat. Drape with plastic wrap. Place watch glass or evap
dish filled with water in center. Then run sound waves from sound generator
through the speaker. Will get standing waves in the water.

59. Place rice in speaker that is lying flat. Run music through speaker.
Rice will dance. In loud passages, it will fly all over the place.

60. Tuning fork is set to vibrating. Ping pong ball is attached to
string.
It swings in, hits fork and bounces off, swings get bigger and bigger.

61. Put two soda cans side by side. Blow between them real hard. Get
amazingly loud, bad sound.

62. Chalk talk. Piece of chalk is taped to end of meter stick. Hold meter
stick about 15 cm from chalk. Chalk is perpendicular to the board. Pull meter
stick to the side at constant speed. Get some weird sounds.

63. Doppler ball - Whiffle ball has a buzzer attached to 9 V battery placed
inside. Whirl ball around in circle at end of string. Will hear Doppler
shift. Variation -- use Styrofoam ball. Place buzzer inside and have
students play catch with it.

64. Tuning fork - walk away from wall that echoes and hear beats. Beats due to
Doppler shift.

65. Twirling sound tubes. Use other hoses as well. Water pump hose, etc.

66. Yes/No Pendulum - resonance. Two soda cans are hung from a wooden stick.
Pendulum lengths differ by 20 %. Fill ¼ full with water to give them some
heft. -- By subtly moving the wooden bar, you can get one of the cans to
swing back and forth. Maybe add a third can that says "maybe".

67. Resonant vibrations of a ruler. Push center of ruler firmly onto block at
center. Pluck one end, the other end will vibrate sympathetically.

68. Resonant rings. 5 circular paper rings are secured to a board. They are
set up with different diameters. Use construction paper. Strips should be
several cm's wide. Lengths: 15 cm, 20 cm, 25 cm, 30 cm, and 35 cm. Shake the
base from side to side. Different loops will vibrate when their natural
frequency has been matched.

69. Beats with a tuning fork. Hold a vibrating tuning fork while walking away
from a sound reflecting wall. You will hear beats. For best results, use a
tuning fork mounted on a wooden box.

70. Drop assorted junk, each has its own natural frequency.

71. Book hanging by two lines. Blow at right frequency and you can get it to
swing a large amount. Shows resonance. If the blows are not administered at
the right frequency, the swing don't build up.

72. Little speaker and big piece of cardboard. Then put speaker into a closed
box with hole. Sounds even better.

73. Chaldani's plates

74. Resonant tuning forks.

75. Ames tubes, resonance deal.

76. Singing wine glasses.

77. Singing aluminum rods -- 1/2 inch, 1 meter (or longer). Coat fingers on
one hand with rosin. Hold rod in center with other hand, stroke along length
and you can get the rod to really screech. Hold in other positions to get
different frequencies.

78. Blowing into bottles

79. Hold bottle up to ear, another person blows into identical bottle. First
bottle resonates.

80. Pan's pipes - make with 1/2 PVC pipes.

81. Cool whip o'phone and 35 mm film can o'phone. Exploratorium snacks.

82. Forced vibration with comb. Run finger over teeth of comb - very weak
sound. Hold comb against desk top and repeat. Much louder.

83. Forced vibration with metal objects stuck into large piece of Styrofoam.
Bang on them and you get a very loud sound.

84. Listen to metal objects (spoons, forks, springs, etc.) through strings as
they hang.

85. Squawking chicken cup, string, and wet sponge.

86. Open/closed end sound reflection in pipe - PVC that you tap on end.
Leave hand on pipe after tap, get one frequency, bounce hand off end of tap and
get higher frequency. Shows difference between close and open ended
reflection.

87. Singing glass tubes - Cenco sells.

88. Iron pipe with screen over Bunsen burner. Educational Innovations sells
these. Can get two that have slightly different length. They produce very
nice beats.

89. Four foot stove pipe over burner. Called "hoot" tubes. Get very deep
steamboat type sound.

90. Twirling sound tube mounted to hole in end of coffee can, dip into bucket
of water. Water acts as piston, forces air through pipe which sings. Fill up
large trash bag with air, force air out through the sound tube like bag pipe.

91. Blow pairs of police whistles to get beats.

92. Home made "Brass" (PVC) instruments. Trumpet is about 2 m long made of
1/2 in PVC. Use funnel for bell. Need mouthpiece. Alp horn uses sewer elbow,
3 in PVC, Step down to 1 1/2 in, step down to 3.4 inch, step down to 1/2 in.
Use tuba mouthpiece. Whole thing is about 3 m long.

93. Guitar - law of strings.

94. Toy instruments

95. Xylopipes

96. Two tuning forks, each has a mirror glued on one side. Clamp upright.
Shine laser on mirror of one so it reflects onto other one's mirror and then
onto wall. Strike forks, laser makes wave pattern on wall.

97. Stretch rubber band over cup. Hold against ear and pluck the rubber
band. Hear the thrum.

98. Drop pennies old ones have better sound than new ones.

99. Musical saw. Get at wal mart. Play with bow.

100. Music box choo choo train. (Tunerville train)

101. Ear guitar. Two paper or Styrofoam cups. String connects. Students
place cups against ear and apply tension. Pluck the string. Sounds like
guitar.

102. Flame tube. 6 foot, 4 to 6 inch stove pipe. Seal at one end. Drill 1/8
in holes along straight line along length of pipe. Mine are about a half inch
apart. Attach gas fitting near end. Stretch rubber balloon over other opening
and place a speaker facing the rubber diaphragm. Turn on gas and ignite the
gas as it comes out of the holes. You end up with a bunch of flames along the
top of the pipe. Turn out lights and play music through speaker. Flames will
"dance" and even form standing wave. I play a tape of short song bits that
does a musical history of popular US music from the turn of the century to the
latest hits.

103. Rig two electric motors on a stand. Motor shafts are attached to
vertical mirrors that get spun. Mirrors are set up so that a laser bounces
from one mirror to the other mirror and then onto a screen. When one motor
spins, laser forms a circle on the screen. By spinning second motor at
different speeds and changing its direction, can form all sorts of intricate
patterns.

104. Make an Edison gramophone. Ideas can be found at
http://freeweb.pdq.net/headstrong/Default.htm (Strange stuff you can make in
your kitchen).

Glenn









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