Sound Test Study Guide

by Sam Harrelson on March 11, 2010

Our Test on Sound is Friday.

Here’s our study guide.

Enjoy and let me know if you have questions!

Sound Test Study Guide ;

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Songs and Sound

by Sam Harrelson on March 4, 2010

We’ll be continuing our studies of sound tomorrow, focusing on the components of a sound wave.

Additionally, we’ll be starting work on our own sound creations (or songs) in class.

If you’d like to get a head start, here are a couple of good online song editors (free):

- Myna from Aviary (My favorite)
- JamStudio (What We’ve Been Using in Class)

There’s also GarageBand on the Mac as well as Audacity (free) that works well on PC’s, Macs or Linux.

If you’re the enterprising sort, also check out Fission if you have a Mac.

See you (and hear you) tomorrow!

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2 Hour Delay Wednesday

by Sam Harrelson on March 2, 2010

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Looks like Spartanburg District 7 is on a 2 hour delay tomorrow, so we’ll be starting school at 10 am.

From Mr. Perkinson:

If we are on a two-hour delay, we will begin at 10am with a 10 min advisory. 3rd period will begin as usual and the rest of the day will be as normally scheduled.

8th graders will meet with Ms. Woodyard as previously scheduled during 3rd period or co-curriculars (Art/Band/Robotics).

Any questions?

See you tomorrow!

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LRAD and the Sound Cannon

by Sam Harrelson on March 2, 2010

Like anything, sound can be used as a weapon. This is especially true because sound is a disturbance of energy. In some cases, that energy can be at such high levels that it causes pain to humans.

In this case, the US Military has been experimenting with using the LRAD (Long Range Acoustic Device) as a deterrent to potential adversaries.

It’s not pleasant to talk about weapons, etc but there is some interesting science in this segment…

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Tacoma Narrows Bridge Videos

by Sam Harrelson on March 2, 2010

Few interesting videos we discussed in 8.2 this morning…

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Homework for Wednesday March 3, 2010

March 2, 2010

You have a quiz on 16.1 and 16.2 tomorrow.
Study!

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Seeing Sound Waves

February 28, 2010

Awesome:

(Turn Your Speakers DOWN!)

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Why Don’t Humans Implode??

February 28, 2010

Go find out why here.
Science rocks.

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What Is Time?

February 27, 2010

What Is Time? One Physicist Hunts for the Ultimate Theory | Wired Science | Wired.com: “I’m trying to understand how time works. And that’s a huge question that has lots of different aspects to it. A lot of them go back to Einstein and spacetime and how we measure time using clocks. But the particular [...]

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Iceberg Physics (and Extra Credit)

February 27, 2010

Iceberg breaks in Antarctica not where expected: “With the dramatic crash of an iceberg against a glacier that dislodged a massive new chunk of ice, the mysterious continent of Antarctica once again did the unexpected.”

A big chunk of extra credit if you can figure out what happened and why it might matter (both for our [...]

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Some Fish Use UV Patterns to Communicate

February 27, 2010

Observatory – Some Fish Use UV Patterns to Recognize Species – NYTimes.com: “The work provides support for the idea, suggested by others, that the ultraviolet part of the spectrum may serve as a way for some species to communicate secretly, in ways invisible to creatures that cannot see UV.”

Fascinating!
We’ll start covering the electromagnetic spectrum (and [...]

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Wednesday 2/24/10: Categories O’ Waves

February 24, 2010

Here are the notes from today on our continuing studies of waves…
- What are the three categories of waves?
- What are the three types of mechanical waves?
- How are electromagnetic and mechanical waves different?
- What is another name for matter waves?
Here’s a nifty site with good info if you need to discover more info [...]

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Tuesday 2/23/10: Four Properties of a Wave

February 23, 2010

Today, we continued our studies of waves and highlighted some of the connections we’ll have in the future with our study of the electromagnetic spectrum.
In the meantime, here are our main points from today…
The Four Properties of a Wave
Frequency = Hz
Amplitude = amount of energy/displacement in a wave
Wavelength = ?
Speed = ? x Hz
Your homework [...]

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Intro to Waves

February 22, 2010

Here are the questions we covered in our study of waves today. If you didn’t get enough info, see section 15.1 of your book.
Your Homework is to please make sure you have a basic grasp of these ideas so that we can start moving ahead tomorrow…
What is a wave?
What types of things are [...]

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At Least It Wasn’t a Mac

February 21, 2010

Wow… effective!

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