String Instrument

Our string instrument is an 18.25 inches long model guitar that we made completely out
wood and household materials. To be more specific we used wood for the body, tacks to
hold the string down, and beads to tie the strings to. For the string, we used a piece of
fishing line instead of actual guitar strings. When making our instrument, we made a box
with a plank of wood coming out the end. Also, we cut a circular hole in the top of the wood
box, to help sound waves enter the box and produce more sound, since the bigger the
surface area is, more sound is created. Our guitar is designed to have one string that can
be tuned to any note with enough tension created. When playing, we will be using a slide
that will press down on the string acting as a threat, which will produce different notes with
certain tensions.
In order to create a note, a wave must be created to move the air particles. A note
can be changed by a few techniques such as tension, length, and frequency. The tension of
a string affects how high the pitch of the note is, also known as its frequency. The length
acts as the same, except in a different way. By shortening the string, it creates a higher
note because of the change in wavelength. We chose to use tension to produce different
notes. Therefore, we used little wood blocks put under the string to create a C. After, we
can use a slide to put even more tension to create higher notes going up/down the scale.
The slide can also shorten the wavelength, thereby creating higher notes moving closer to
the base of the guitar.
Wind instrument
Our wind instrument is made of a 32.5 cm pvc pipe. For our instrument we drilled
holes at different lengths to achieve the different notes we needed. A wind instrument works
because a gust of wind is pushed into a long pipe then vibrates through the chosen
material. The pitches the instrument makes are determined by the size and shape of the
pipe. We placed different holes according to the distance from the end of the PVC,
changing the wavelength. First we tuned the PVC by cutting it to its length of 32.5
centimeters using the guess and check method. We actually compared it to a scale of
wavelengths for a C and it was nearly just off from of its length. Then, we found the
fractions at which each note and hole was going to be placed. The scale we used is the
chart seen below. This is where we drilled holes into the PVC pipe.
Note # note length
0 C 1
1 D 8/9
2 E 4/5
3 F 3/4
4 G 2/3
5 A 3/5
6 B 8/15
Wind instrument
Our wind instrument is made of a 32.5 cm pvc pipe. For our instrument we drilled holes at
different lengths to achieve the different notes we needed. A wind instrument works
because a gust of wind is pushed into a long pipe then vibrates through the chosen
material. The pitches the instrument makes are determined by the size and shape of the
pipe. We placed different holes according to the distance from the end of the PVC,
changing the wavelength. First we tuned the PVC by cutting it to its length of 32.5
centimeters using the guess and check method. We actually compared it to a scale of
wavelengths for a C and it was nearly just off from of its length. Then, we found the
fractions at which each note and hole was going to be placed. The scale we used is the
chart seen below. This is where we drilled holes into the PVC pipe.

Our Song Lyrics -
Hey my name is Andrew
I rock the whole crew
Stem is my favorite class
Learning about force and mass
And I'm here to tell you about it

- Guitar solo -

We do lots of projects
Including the rube goldberg
Physics of Sports
Hybrid car
Creative Engineering
Passive Solar
And building a band

- Chime solo
To be continued