Re: Pinhole Digest #802 - 12/22/01

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From: Paul Doherty (pauld@exploratorium.edu)
Date: Tue Jan 29 2002 - 13:43:29 PST 

Message-ID: <3C571770.91BD5B35@exploratorium.edu>
Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 13:43:29 -0800
From: Paul Doherty <pauld@exploratorium.edu>
Subject: Re: Pinhole Digest #802 - 12/22/01

Hi Sharon

I appologize for my delay in answering, I've been off climbing Mt. Aspiring in the Southern Alps of New Zealand.

The rainstick is a complicated sound producer.

The "beans" freefall between the cross sticks, strike them and then fall again to hit the next stick.
Each hit produces a sharp click (the exact sound of the click depends on the bean the stick and the tube.)
Some beans fall and mss a few sticks then it the next one, some hit the very next one.
This leads to the production of a series of clicks with random timing, which if there are enough clicks overlapping in tme produces a sound also also known as "white noise."

You could try starting with ne bean then try 2, 10, 100 and see how the sound changed.
Use rice, beans and steel BB's
Try small nmbers of sticks and then arger numbers.

Good luck, this sounds like a great experiment.

Paul D

SKIRBY@aol.com wrote:

> I have students who need to know how (the physics of) a rainstick works. They have done quite alot of reseach and have built using beans and rice for the sound. They cannot find out about the physics. Help!
> Sharon Kirby
>
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