For this experiment my partners and I created a Rubens Tube. A Rubens Tube is a way of visually showing the relationship between sound waves and sound pressures. The tube would have a diaphragm at one end of the tube that can be moved by the sound of the speaker it would also have holes at the top of it so that the gas could escape the tube. Once the gas is lit and the speaker moves the diaphragm the peaks and troughs of the sound will cause the flame to move.
To do this project my partners and I bought a 5ft metal Conduit Tube. Then we put blue masking tape on top of the tube and put markings at least 1inch apart. Then we proceeded to drill the top of the tube, when the drilling was done we had to add the diaphragm we used a latex glove for ours (Any sort of material with elasticity that can vibrate with sound would have worked.) We then caped of the other end of the drill and we were ready to start. |
At a molecular level the sound created by the speaker moves the diaphragm and because of that movement the gas in the tube is moved essentially from one end of the tube to the other which is why the flame is higher in some places and lower in others. Also because sound travels as a wave the the flames will have distinct peaks and troughs. My partners and I found distinctive results. Something that I believe played a factor to our research was our extensive research. We made sure that each piece of the tube was put on correctly and even then we double even triple checked our work. Even with each of these percussions it still wasn't perfect, but these problems were still fixable. My partners were Adrian, Bryan, and Jake. I feel that we worked great together and I definitely see us guys working together again as a group. We were always on task...most of the time... but, I believe thats what our group was all about, we were friends that agreed on practically everything and joked about every single thing that we did. Something I could take away from this is just a whole new perspective on how to do things. I always knew there were sound waves but didn't think we could actually see them visible with just the naked eye. Now after building this I can actually see what these waves are and its just amazing.