Sound-Vibrations

INTRODUCTION:

Our project is a cochlea with led lights inside which turn on and off depending on the frequencies of sounds. The Cochlea is made by a rubber tube rolled up. Inside of it there are different led lights all connected to an arduino and a computer. We decided to build it because we are all keen on music, sound, and Physics

and we wanted to study deeper these topics.

SCIENTIFIC CORPUS: In Physics, sound is a vibration that propagates as an acoustic wave. As humans, we hear the frequencies of sound lying between 20 Hz and 20 kHz. What we wanted to do was to turn on and off lights of different colours depending on the frequencies the microphone ears.

MATERIALS: 

  1. rubber tub (cochlea)
  2. Arduino
  3. breadboard
  4. led line
  5. computer
  6. microphone 

RISK ASSESSMENT: the only risk you can run into is to burn the leds if you use too much energy to turn them on, this way you can also burn your hands. So be careful not to use too much energy.

 PROCEDURES:

  1. we built a microphone on a breadboard and wrote a programme to study how it works.
  2. we created an breadboard with leds and wrote the first programme of Arduino.
  3. we combined the two programmes using the same breadboard for both.
  4. we wrote a programme about frequencies 
  5. we’ve been given the leds’ programme and we combined it with the frequencies’ programme and michropone’s programme.
  6. we rolled up the rubber tub and fixed it with the glue and we put the leds line inside.
  7. we connected all the materials to arduino and the programmes and it worked. 

PROBLEMS WE FACED: at the beginning, our project was binaural ears but we found lots of difficulties, so we decided to change the project and start this one. we faced this problem talking and brainstorming during the meetings and we came to the conclusion that changing it was the best option. in the new project, the biggest problem was to write a working programme, since we all haven’t a lot of experience with arduino; for this reason we’ve been helped by our tutors and, in the end, we were able to create a working programme.

PHYSICS LESSON: our project can be used to explain frequencies of sound and to explain how human ears, and most of all the cochlea, work.