This isn’t officially a capstone (I’m only doing them officially with my AP class), but it’s a great project that she did to demonstrate her Advanced-level understanding of timbre and FFT analysis.
Inspired by a website, Grace constructed some of these vowel resonators and compared the aural and FFT results to those in the article and to recorded vowel sounds. After that, she revised her resonators a bit, using reeds made from straws instead of the duck calls, and decided that these sounds closer to the original vowels (the duck calls were too bright).
Read the paper here!
[Cross-posted at tatnallsbg.blogspot.com (Newton's Minions)]
Abstract:
In this paper I explore the physics of the computer game Osmos. It was my goal to see how accurately Newton’s laws applied to this game. I captured video of the game and used Logger Pro to analyze the physics of how an object propels itself by expelling some of its mass in the opposite direction. I discovered that impacts between random objects have perfect conservation of energy; when the main mass controlled the player moves conservation is not conserved. In that situation, the player is given approximately four to five times the amount of energy dictated by Newton’s laws to make the game easier.
Alex Christofferson, AP Physics C – The Tatnall School, Wilmington DE
Full paper linked here.
Inspired by a website, Grace constructed some of these vowel resonators and compared the aural and FFT results to those in the article and to recorded vowel sounds. After that, she revised her resonators a bit, using reeds made from straws instead of the duck calls, and decided that these sounds closer to the original vowels (the duck calls were too bright).