Wooden Harp
As you can hopefully guess, I made a wooden harp. This harp has a wooden framing and uses fishing lines as the strings. I used fishing line since it is able to stretch without snapping so I could tighten the line. I was able to tighten and tune the line with screws which I would screw in or out depending on what note I was trying to get. The tighter lines caused them to have more tension which allowed them to vibrate faster causing a louder sound. I was able to then tighten the screws to a specific point using a pitch matcher online.
Content
The next step was to make my harp sound loud and clear and to do this, I needed to amplify it. I did this by making a barrier on the backside of my harp so that the sound waves would all get redirected in front of the instrument. This allows for a clearer and louder sound. There was not a natural frequency to the string since hitting it by itself does not create a sound. The harp plays seven notes, from A to G with each string placed a certain distance apart. To get the distance for each stings, you would take the wavelength and divide it by two. This allowed the strings to be much easier tightened since they were all at the right length.
Reflection
Overall, during this project I learned a lot about how waves move and how to produce sound. I even now know how to make a specific sound by measuring out the wavelength of the note I am trying to play. This was really helpful while building our instruments since we could build our instruments around the notes we were trying to play. It also took a lot of time out of tuning our instruments since the length was already set for the note. I also feel like my designing skills have increased since I knew how I was going to build this instrument from the start of the project.
Not everything was perfect however, some of our instruments were designed poorly making us have to redo them. Some issues though were not realized till the last minute. For example, Bret's flute was to long so he wasn't able to reach some of the notes. However, our groups instruments were still good and all worked really well in the end.
Not everything was perfect however, some of our instruments were designed poorly making us have to redo them. Some issues though were not realized till the last minute. For example, Bret's flute was to long so he wasn't able to reach some of the notes. However, our groups instruments were still good and all worked really well in the end.