From the MAKE Flickr photo pool
Steven Goodwin shares tips and measurements for making the perfect study hall instrument –
If there’s one piece of science that every kid knows, it’s that twanging a ruler on the edge of the desk makes a noise, and by changing the amount of overhang will change the pitch. Give anyone a new ruler, and the first thing they’ll do is twang it, to see how it sounds. This is an interesting fact of life.
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So, to bring an element of fun back to the proceedings, we can combine these facts to build a very simple ‘rule organ’. By taping thirteen rulers to a nearby desk, each with a different amount of overhang, we have a rudimentary musical (?!?!?!?) instrument. So, how much overhang is necessary, and how do we do it?
Head over to his site for the specifics – Rule Organ
10 thoughts on “rulers + tape +books = Rule Organ”
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While skimming this for the basics … I saw him talking about letting the rulers overhang by x ammount of millimeters, and the gap between the edge and the marking.
The first question I asked myself is: How does he know how far each one is hanging … then I realized He’s using 13 perfectly good rulers.
c’est la vie … Make = The Best.
This is pretty much just evil to post something like this without video or audio. I challenge you to find one person who read this article that didn’t want to hear what it sounds like.
that’s weird because i was too lazy to build an instrument for my Science class last year so i did something similar to this
Daxophones are elaborate carved wooden strips cut for different sounds.
http://www.efi.group.shef.ac.uk/photos/idax.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daxophone
I first found out about daxophones in the audio collection and book _Gravikords, Whirligigs, and Pyrophones_.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFG9uR9Q_L4
(from the bottom of the page)