The physics of music

Activity 1:

Material: a microphone connected to an osciloscope; a screen that displayed the sound captured by the microphone superimposed to a wave corresponding to the note of a diapason (e.g. la). The aim was for the visitor to create with their voice the same wavefront. Explain that the sound is a wave, the difference between the wave of the diapason and our voice (harmonics). Animators also used a guitar to create different sounds and explain the difference in pitch.

Activity 2:

Hang from a support structure a ping-pong ball, just touching to a diapason A. Place in front a diapason B resonating to the same note as diapason A. Hit diapason B and see the ping-pong ball moving. Explain the wave / sound propagation and the resonance.

Activity organisers / animators

Yannick Demets (Master student)
Riccardo Poggi (PhD student)
Sandro D'Aleo (lab technician)

TJ Khoo (Postdoc)
Davide Racco (DPT PhD student)
Manuel Vielma (DPT PhD student)
David Droz (PhD student)

Activity posters

Pictures

Dessine-toi en scientifique

To involve the youngest or those kids who like drawing, there was an activity where kids were asked to draw themselves as a scientist. We got very few participations.

Comment for the future:

Consider in an indoors event.

Activity file

A picture and some creations