Building Pipes Whistles

During the second week of class we built pipe whistles with pvc tubing. First, we picked one fundamental note for our whistle. Then we used the equation Velocity = Frequency x Wavelength to find the wavelength and then the pipe length for an open column of air. Then we cut the pvc pipes with the right measurements so they would produce a sound that was close to the note. For the whistle to work well, we had to make a sharp edge to split the air stream. When all of this was done, we tried to match the sound of the piano with the sound of the flutes to see if our calculations were correct. Finally we made more calculations to add the holes in the right place, so it could produce more notes.