Physics
Xylo-Xylophone!
How do different materials on mallet heads affect the sound produced by a wooden xylophone?
While working on our Xylo-Xylophone, my team found that some tasks were harder than we originally assumed they would be. We used a ping pong ball and a rubber bouncy ball as mallet heads. After multiple tests of each striker on the keys, we found that the lighter material created the finest sound. The ping pong ball was the most pleasing to hear whereas the bouncy ball was very dull, creating extremely off-key notes. A problem we encountered during the process of creating the instrument was running out of time! This greatly affected the overall sound because we did not have time to tune our keys. Though that mistake greatly contributed to the noise of our wooden keys, our xylophone still has musical characteristics to it. To answer our essential question, the lighter head affected the keys in a positive way unlike the heavier mallet head which drowned out the potential sound of our Xylo-Xylophone.
Rocket Project
In our rocket poster included a conclusion, a rocket log, and a reflection of our rocket launch.
Rocket Log
11/2/11- Yesterday my partner and I tested our rocket half pressure launch, and our rocket successfully launched. We will spend the rest of our time spray painting and refining our rocket so that we are prepared to launch on exhibition day!
11/1/11- Yesterday we finished our parachute, and spray painted our rocket. Next we will have to fit the parachute in the nose cone and make sure the nose cone and parachute will come apart. We will do this by sanding parts of our rocket.
10/31/11- Today we will finish our parachute that we began on Friday. We also will spray paint and decorate our bottle. To make sure the parachute is ready we will test it off of a high brick wall and my partner will toss it down while I catch it and we will see if it works.
10/27/11- Today my partner and I will finish our nose cone and make a parachute. We still don’t know when the rocket launch is, but we will spray paint the rocket this weekend if we can.
10/26/11- Today we will try to make the nose cone and attach it to our rocket. We will brainstorm ideas for what to make our nose cone out of. If we do not have the materials we will get the materials tonight and begin making it tomorrow.
10/25/11- Today my partner and I will try to attach the fins to our rocket. We ran into a difficulty on Friday when our fins were hit and ruined so we will be creating this area of the rocket again today. We got two new bottles to begin again. Next, we will have to sand our bottle and then attach the fins to wood and glue it to the bottle.
10/21/11- Today we will make our fins out of this glassy material and start placing them on the bottle. To do this we will have to look up where to place the fins on our bottle to make it as accurate as we can.
10/18/11- Today we will redraw our plans because we bought a new rocket for our experiment. We will also make a list of materials for our rocket and turn it in. We might go to city market to buy another bottle so we can make our back up rocket incase it doesn’t work.
10/17/11- Today we will draw our rocket to a scale, read through the packet, and do some research. Tomorrow we will probably continue on research and thinking of ideas for our rocket.